


The Queen's Gambit

by Ginipig



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Ritual Performed with Warden, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everybody Lives, F/M, Happy Ending, King Alistair (Dragon Age), Major Character Almost Death, Marriage of Convenience, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 02:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20828246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginipig/pseuds/Ginipig
Summary: Nearly a year into their marriage, Anora is blindsided by a confession: Alistair Theirin, her best friend (and, incidentally, her husband), is in love with her. But love is selfish, and as Anora has been taught all her life, a ruler is never selfish.Or: Alistair talks, Anora thinks, and somehow they rule Ferelden together.





	1. Opening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amarmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarmeme/gifts).

> amarmeme: You asked for and Alistair/Anora marriage of convenience, with some "Alistair and Anora marry for Ferelden and there seems to be no love between them until somehow there is?"
> 
> I'm not great at one-shots in the middle of things, nor am I particularly skilled at writing short. So here is a somewhat lengthy fic about what happens when Alistair falls for Anora, but Anora just sees him as a good friend. Also there's a chess theme because reasons. I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once referred to as “The King’s Game,” chess is a two-player (white vs. black) strategy game played on a checker board. Each player begins with 16 pieces, consisting of **1 king, 1 queen**, 2 bishops, 2 rooks (or castles), 2 knights, and 8 pawns, with the queen being the most powerful piece. **The objective is to “checkmate” the opponent’s king, placing it under an inescapable threat of capture.**  
  
Each chess game consists of three phases: the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame.  
  
The strategic aims of most openings include:
> 
>   * **Development, or placing pieces in strategically useful squares on the board.**
>   * Control of the central squares, the strategic “high ground” of the board.
>   * **Ensuring the safety of the king, often achieved by castling**, a one-time special move in which a player’s king and one rook (or castle) perform a type of swapping movement. 
> 
> **The Queen’s Gambit** is one of the oldest known chess openings. It begins with **movement of the white (starting player) Queen’s pawn forward two spaces. Black must either accept or reject the Queen’s Gambit**.

“Wait,” Alistair said, holding up the hand that wasn’t holding his wine glass. “You and Cailan defeated a giant in West Hills … _and_ there was cheese involved? How did I not know about this?”

Anora greatly enjoyed how her friend (and, incidentally, her husband) turned fully toward her, leg crooked on the cushion between them and back against the arm of the couch, eager to hear more of the story, not for the potential gossip but because of her.

Her own back rested against the other arm, and her legs stretched out between them. With his shift toward her, his leg snuggled her feet into the back of the couch, warming them up.

She wriggled her toes and took a sip of wine before saying, “Because when asked, Cailan only responded with a dramatic pause and something about how” — here she fell into a rather unkind impression of Cailan in his most obnoxious royal arrogance — “’it’s better that the people of Ferelden not know the lengths their prince goes to in order to protect them.’”

She rolled her eyes, and Alistair snorted into his wine and did the same. He was the only person she could talk with about Cailan in such a way — partly because she knew he would never share her opinions with anyone, but mostly because he, more than anyone, understood the folly of Cailan’s fatal hubris.

“And I certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone what happened,” she added with a shrug.

Alistair grinned, rolling the stem of his still-full glass between his fingers. His eyes twinkled like they always did when he was in on a joke. “Which was?”

Anora straightened primly, savoring the way she held him captive to her story. Perhaps she should have been a bard.

“King Maric’s scout had hidden in a storage cellar for a week, and Cailan merely succeeded in being pummeled almost to death.” She smirked into her wine glass. “_I _defeated the giant in West Hills using only an improvised bomb and a nearby cliff.”

Alistair threw his head back in laughter, and Anora drank to her triumphs — both past and present.

Anora had never in her life heard a laugh as wonderfully contagious as Alistair’s. She’d tried, for a time, to resist it, but found that when she gave in and laughed or smiled along, she never failed to feel better, no matter what she was struggling with. There was something about it that just exuded joy. Perhaps because it was always genuine; Alistair downright refused to offer a false laugh, unlike most Fereldan and all Orlesian nobles, and even Anora herself. Or maybe because of how earned it felt; if anyone in Ferelden could complain about the life the Maker had dealt him, it was Alistair, and yet he was always ready with a joyful laugh. Or perhaps it was because Alistair’s laugh was never, as long as she’d known him, used for ill. He only ever laughed at those who deserved it due to their station or choices or both, and never at those who truly suffered.

It was likely that the beauty of his laugh was a combination of all of those things, plus something ineffable that was just … Alistair.

In any case, she loved to hear it and adored being responsible for it.

“And, of course, that whip-smart mind of yours,” he added to her list of items with which she defeated a giant over ten years ago. His grin faded into a fond smile, one that she saw more of these days, and which never failed to make her stomach flutter. “Maker, Nor, why don’t you let the people see this side of you? A powerful _and _heroic queen? They’d eat that up. You’d be this generation’s Moira or Rowan.”

Anora’s cheeks heated. _Nor_, his nickname for her, had come about because he’d been seized by the hiccups in a rare moment of tipsiness — she’d never met anyone who could hold his alcohol as well as Alistair — and hadn’t been able to get out more than that one middle syllable. Such an auspicious origin for a nickname bestowed by a king on his queen. And yet, it had been so adorable and genuine that Anora had immediately loved it. No one, not her father (who always called her by her full name) or even Cailan, had ever given her a nickname before.

As to the content of what Alistair had said, Queen Moira, Maric’s mother, and Queen Rowan, Cailan’s mother and Maric’s wife, had both fought in the war to free Ferelden from Orlesian rule. They’d fought true battles, while Anora had barely saved her idiotic, then-betrothed from a giant he’d attempted to kill single-handedly in his delusions of grandeur.

She shook her head. “They don’t need another heroic queen. That’s what their king is for.”

Alistair stared at her blankly, blinking a few times. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.” As he started to protest, she nudged his leg with her bare foot. “Don’t. You are a hero of the Blight and a Grey Warden. That means something to people.”

Alistair, as he so often did when anyone spoke well of him, shrugged and intensely studied the contents of his glass. “And everyone knows there’s a one-monarch limit on these sorts of things.”

She laughed out loud at that, and he grinned, as he always did when he made her laugh.

“Then again,” he said and began to tick things off on his fingers. “Excellent politician, check. Impressive fighter, check — learned that one the hard way,” he added, winking.

She protested as she always did, but with a smile. “I only beat you that first time because you assumed I didn’t know how to use a sword!” She might have accidentally forgotten to tell him that when he’d promised to teach her, but the look on his face when she’d disarmed him had been utterly priceless.

“And now heroic protector of the people of Ferelden,” he finished, sighing dramatically. “I suppose if it got out that you misspent your youth slaying giants —”

“_One_ giant,” she corrected.

“— there wouldn’t be any reason to keep me around.”

Her grin evaporated. “Don’t say that.”

“You know it’s true.”

His insecurities regarding his skills as a ruler made her heart ache.

“I thought that once,” she said. “But not anymore. You have filled the crown better than anyone expected.”

He shrugged and once again focused on his wine. “I had help.”

“And I was happy to do so.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“Eventually!” she protested, smiling. “I had my doubts at first, but I was wrong.” She placed a hand atop his, which still rested on the back of the couch. “In less than a year, you have shown yourself to be such a good king. Together, we make an excellent team. We are partners, for the good of Ferelden.”

His gaze flicked to her face before lingering on their touching hands, expression uncertain.

Thinking such intimacy might be unwelcome — aside from the bimonthly scheduled sex, they rarely touched except for the occasional hug or chaste public kiss — she moved to pull her hand away, but he caught it in his.

He squeezed it and graced her with one of his rarest smiles — soft, sweet, and genuine. “We are, aren’t we?” Then he began to stroke the back of her hand with his thumb.

She nodded, squeezed his hand, and quickly removed hers.

As sweet as it was, that gesture _was_ too intimate for her.

To diffuse any potential awkwardness, she took a page from Alistair’s book and lightened the mood with gentle teasing.

With the slightest of eye rolls, she said, “It was your idea to start these ridiculous dinners, after all.”

Alistair had suggested, not long after their wedding, that each week they spend one night dining together, so that they might get to know each other better as rulers and spouses.

One corner of his mouth lifted at that. “You hated them.”

So she had. She’d despised the idea of getting to better know the bastard brother of her late husband, married to him or no, but to her surprise, for the first time since they’d met, he had shown a backbone and refused to back down.

“In my defense, they improved dramatically after we started to incorporate wine.”

He laughed at that, and once again she reveled in the sound. “One of my better ideas, if I may say so.” He lifted his glass to her in a toast.

She did the same, touching her glass to his with a small clink, and they drank.

It was odd, when she thought about it, for her to now so enjoy the company of a man who, though he hadn’t wielded the sword, had desperately advocated for her father’s execution. And that had only been the first of numerous reasons she objected to his coronation.

Not only had the bastard son of Maric lacked any experience with politics, nobles, or anything other than templar and Warden training, but he hadn’t even wanted to be king! Eamon had only advocated for Alistair because of his blood, and she had never trusted the old man’s motives. They had always seemed selfish, and if there was one thing rulers should never, ever be, it was selfish. That was what her father had taught her growing up (and had never swayed from, in his own twisted way), and it was what she had always done, including arguing against Alistair at the Landsmeet and especially her agreement to marry him — if his blood and her expertise were what would settle the people away from civil war, then so be it.

And that agreement had been the ultimate in unselfishness, for she had vowed to herself that she, Anora Mac Tir Theirin would never again place herself under the heel of a man. When Cailan died, she had mourned, yes, but she’d also known, for the first time, what it was like to be _free_. Until, of course, her father had begun his descent into madness and shown that he, too, only saw her as a means to an end. So when she’d agreed to marry Alistair, (her late husband’s half-brother!), she had done so on her terms. They would rule jointly, as a team, for never again would she sacrifice herself, her choices, her freedom, for a man.

And rule jointly they had. Alistair was kind and empathetic, while Anora was shrewd and calculating. Their areas of expertise differed vastly, and every single one of the improvements Alistair had suggested had been both successful and popular. So it was rather early on in their marriage that she realized their co-rule had truly been the best possible outcome of the Landsmeet.

But their personal relationship had been an entirely separate monster. Now, when she thought about it, she couldn’t recall when she stopped actively avoiding him or dreading these dinners, nor could she remember when their acceptance and tolerance of each other had evolved into friendship. She did, however, acknowledge a few significant moments along the way that had gradually shifted her opinion of him.

Alistair had searched for her after she’d left the Landsmeet — she hadn’t broken down and burst into tears until she was in private, and she’d managed to gather herself before he entered due to the noise of his incessant self-chatter in the hallway, which she realized now had been due to his nervousness. He had come to discuss her safety and potential contingencies should he fall in battle. Her answers in the moment had been rather cruel, but Alistair had shrugged and, with a grin that unsettled her, suggested that perhaps she would get lucky and he would die fighting the archdemon.

She’d been struck by that grin. Cailan’s had unsettled her as well, but he had smiled at the idea of war, confident that his imaginary strategies would win the day and bring him glory. Alistair, on the other hand, had grinned at the idea of _dying_, and she couldn’t quite identify why. Had he been confident that his death could only bring her joy, or was he using macabre humor to cover up something he — or she — was feeling? In either case, he had cracked a few more jokes and then left, a newly crowned king off to face his death with a smile on his face. His bravery had affected her enough that she prayed for his survival in spite of the fact that she hadn’t wanted to marry him in the first place.

Their wedding had been nothing special — it wasn’t her first, and neither was he. She, however, had been his first, in both senses of the phrase.

He’d hemmed and hawed that evening when they’d retired to his bedroom, but she had insisted, concerned that he would use a lack of consummation in an attempt to throw her over later.

But Alistair — sweet, bumbling, shy Alistair — had promised her that night that he would never forsake her; that the vows he’d sworn, though grudging, were nonetheless earnest and honest before the Maker; that due to the Joining, he (like all Wardens) was likely sterile and that they’d “need to figure that out at some point, what with the ever-important bloodline and all.” And yet, most surprising of all (even more so than his admission of sterility), had been his confession that he was only nervous because … he had never lain with a woman before.

That _had _been a first for Anora. Cailan had slept with countless women, both prior to and during their marriage. She’d been shocked, quite frankly, but had not laughed, as Alistair had apparently feared; instead, she took advantage of the opportunity to show her new husband how he could be pleased and, more importantly, how to please her. All in all, she rather enjoyed the experience, having come away more sated after a single night with Alistair than during her entire marriage to Cailan. However, though Alistair requested otherwise, she had flat-out refused to stay with him after their exertions had concluded. That they never actually sleep in the same bed was one of her ground rules, to which he acquiesced with obvious disappointment.

And true to his word (as he always was, she realized), he later only broke her rule once she — albeit frightened and sleep-deprived — had given her permission.

Given Cailan’s violent death, her treatment at the hands of her father and Rendon Howe, and the events of the Landsmeet — which had included her father’s summary execution and left her splattered in his blood, watching his head roll across the floor — Anora often suffered from nightmares. One night she awoke with a gasp from a particularly severe one to find Alistair kneeling beside her bed, soft and concerned. She had allowed him to hold her as she cried, and to share with her that he, too, struggled many nights to achieve a peaceful sleep. She’d drifted into the Fade in the comforting warmth and safety of his arms, and though they didn’t make a habit of it, from then on they would occasionally share one of their beds in order to keep the monsters and memories at bay.

So while she didn’t know when, exactly, Alistair had gone from a necessary political pawn for her to stay queen to an ally and even a friend, she knew it was due to the way he’d always treated her — in spite of the horrible way she’d often treated him — with kindness and respect.

Alistair Theirin, far from being a means to an end, had somehow grown into the closest friend Anora had ever had.

* * *

Anora smiled across the couch at Alistair while she thought about how far they had come in the nine or so months since their wedding. She’d never have imagined when she agreed to marry him that she would end up liking him so much, but she was so happy she had.

As she awoke from her reverie, she realized that he, too, seemed to be lost in thought. He stared intently, brow furrowed in some emotion she couldn’t identify, at something in his hand.

A flower of some sort. Red.

“Alistair?”

He blinked and looked up at her. “I’m sorry. I was …” He swallowed. “I was lost in thought. What were you saying?”

“I wasn’t saying anything. But you look …” She still couldn’t identify it. “Are you all right?”

Alistair closed his hand over the flower and slid it into his pocket, grinning. “Of course. A little too much wine tonight, I think.”

Anora raised an eyebrow. She knew him well enough by now to know when he was lying.

And he knew her well enough to know that she knew when he was lying.

He sighed and brought his hand from his pocket, opening it so she could see the flower — a rose — once again. “Do you know what this is?”

Anora narrowed her eyes. “Do I know what a rose is? I should hope so.”

He laughed, but it came out high-pitched and unnatural. He was nervous. “Of course you do! Because you’re clever and smart and probably had to take flower-identifying lessons as a child.” He stared intently at the rose once again, brushing it gently, almost caressing it, with his fingers and thumb. “You probably also know that we have a rose garden. Right out there!” He pointed with the thumb of his other hand over his shoulder.

“Yes.” Anora smiled at his excitement in spite of herself but nodded her head once, slowly up and back down. Why was he acting so odd?

After a moment, her eyes widened.

“You — you have seen roses before, yes?” she asked.

“What? Of course!” Alistair shook his head in confusion and not a little offense. “Who hasn’t seen a rose before?”

Anora’s face heated. “I’m sorry. That was a rather insulting question. But you confused me. Did you think I am unaware of what a rose is even though they’ve grown in the palace garden as long as I can remember?”

“No! I just —” Alistair sighed, bringing a hand to his forehead. “I’m messing this up. I’m sorry.”

Anora shifted on the couch, moving to the center cushion and positioning her legs underneath her. She placed a hand on his arm and laughed lightly. “Messing what up? Alistair, it’s me. You can tell me whatever is on your mind.”

She gently took his hand and lowered it from his face.

When he looked up, his eyes, wide and watering and a rather lovely golden brown, met hers, and they took her breath away. There was a vulnerability in them she’d never seen before, not even the night before the Battle of Denerim when he’d joked about his death. Then, his humor had acted as a defensive wall, keeping any potential insults at a far enough distance that their effect on him would be minimized. But now, there was nothing for him to hide behind; in his eyes, Alistair’s heart lay bare for her to see.

“I picked this in the garden the other day,” he whispered. The intimacy sent a shiver down Anora’s spine, but not in objection. “It was the only one left. The rest had been zapped by the cold, but this one …” He looked down at it with a fondness that made Anora’s heart flutter, and he caressed a single petal with a gentleness that seemed at complete odds with his past as a large and formidable warrior. “This one sat alone, majestic and beautiful, like it was daring the weather to just try and stop it from blooming. I hadn’t realized roses were that strong.”

“Most aren’t,” she admitted. “This one must be special.”

“It is.” Alistair’s smile was so soft and sweet that Anora thought she might cry.

“What should we do with it?” she asked, once she’d regained the ability to speak.

Alistair held his hand out her. “I thought I might give it to you, actually. In a lot of ways, I think the same things when I look at you.”

In that moment, Anora lost the ability to breathe.

“I guess it’s a bit silly, isn’t it?” Alistair’s self-deprecating grin had returned. “I’ve spent a lot of time since they made me king moping and complaining and lamenting my bastard lot in life. But you haven’t exactly been having a good time of it yourself. With the Blight and Cailan and the political unrest and — and your father …” He swallowed, and Anora knew how painful even thinking about Father was for him. “The Blight’s taken just as much from you as it has me, and I thought maybe I could say something. Tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find as we recover from all this … darkness.”

He held the rose out to her even further, and she took it. “Alistair, I …” She took a shaky breath. “I don’t know what to say.”

Alistair shrugged. “I don’t know. It might sound strange, considering we haven’t known each other for very long, but I’ve come to … care for you. A great deal. I think maybe it’s because we’ve gone through so much together.” He looked away. “Or maybe I’m imagining it. Maybe I’m fooling myself.” Staring at their still-joined hands, he placed his other one above hers, then met her gaze once again. “Am I? Fooling myself? Or do you think you might ever … feel the same way about me?”

Anora’s stomach dropped to the floor, where it soured like druffalo milk left out in the sun too long. “What —” Maker, she could barely breathe. “What do you mean?”

Alistair chuckled and raised his gaze to the heavens. “You’re going to make me say it? I swear, woman, you’ll be the death of me.” The hint of his smile remained, and those eyes twinkled with mirth and something else. Something more beautiful, and Anora felt light-headed. “Nor,” he said, brushing a strand of her hair away from her face. “I think I’m falling in —”

“Stop!” She jerked away, and he, of course — _of course _— pulled back, too. “Please, don’t. I — I —” Suddenly and to her immense surprise, tears blurred her vision, and she swiped at them angrily. But her anger wasn’t aimed at him.

It was aimed at herself.

How had she allowed it to come to this? It wasn’t right or fair.

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I just —” She shook her head vigorously. “I can’t, Alistair.”

“You can’t —” The grin he pasted on was just like the one he’d shown her the night before the Battle of Denerim — brittle, fake, and covering pain. The noise he made sounded like something halfway between a scoff and a chuckle; whatever it was, it came out bitter. “You can’t what, exactly? Let me finish?”

Hands at her mouth, she shook her head again. “I can’t — I don’t — feel that way about you.”

He huffed out a breath as if she’d punched him in the gut — perhaps she had, for all intents and purposes — and he turned away, but not before she saw his face crumple.

It hurt her, to see him like this, and she longed to soothe him, her _best friend_, with a hand on his shoulder.

But she couldn’t. Not anymore.

Alistair hid his face behind his hand for a moment, but reemerged with what looked disturbingly like romantic optimism in his eye.

“Can’t or don’t?” he asked, and Maker help her, there was a hopeful longing on his face that she knew she would have to crush. “Because those are two very different things,” he babbled, like he always did when he was nervous. “_Don’t_ is sort of a current status that could change, while _can’t_ is more permanent. But we’re married, which means we’re stuck with each other, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, ‘til death do us part and all that, so _can’t_ seems a bit premature, and —”

“No, Alistair.” Anora took a deep breath when he looked at her, dangling on a precipice, off of which she was about shove him, perhaps to his death. “I can’t.” It had to be _can’t_; she couldn’t leave him with even a hint of hope for something that would never come. “I’m — I’m so sorry.”

As she carved out her best friend’s heart, her tears overflowed to roll down her cheeks, and this time she didn’t wipe them away.

He didn’t react, or at least not as strongly, as though he were prepared this time. A grin, which they both knew was hiding his pain, flashed at her. “Well, there’s nothing more to discuss, is there?” he said, cool and casual. “Forget I said anything. I’ll just wander off and swallow my foot. Maybe ... both of them. Excuse me.”

And before she could say or do anything to stop him — not that she would have, as he deserved to respond in whatever way he needed — he had crossed their main sitting area to his own rooms and closed the door behind him.

She knew it was over, everything they’d built so far, their understanding and kinship and friendship. They couldn’t continue like they had after what had just passed between them. So, still clutching the rose he’d given her as a symbol of his respect for her, she gently slid from a sitting to a prone position on the couch and let her tears flow.

She grieved for him, for the happiness she knew he wanted and had given up for the people of Ferelden, for the love he thought he’d found in someone with as cold and cruel a heart as hers.

She grieved for herself, for the loss of a friendship unlike any she’d ever known.

But mostly she grieved for Ferelden and its people, for the loss of their rulers who had only just begun to work together for their country’s best interests.

As she sobbed, she wished he were here to soothe her, like he had been after her nightmares. What she wouldn’t give to be held in his arms one last time, to listen to his heartbeat and follow his slow, calming breaths, to let him smooth her hair and hold her tight and assure her that everything would be fine.

Just one last time, because she knew that from now on, nothing between them would be fine.

* * *

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” came the familiar greeting, in a soft voice that Anora could tell even with her eyes closed was smiling gently.

Her eyes shot open, hoping, praying that everything that had happened between them had just been a horrible dream. That she would awake in his arms just like after any other nightmare.

She met Alistair’s gaze, which he immediately broke, but not before she saw that his eyes were red and puffy and rimmed with dark circles.

Not a dream, then.

He stood and moved away from her. “I let you sleep as long as possible, but we’ve got that council meeting this morning, and I really don’t want to be lectured again about my tardiness.”

She sat up, her back immediately protesting from its night spent on the couch, a blanket she had definitely not fallen asleep under falling away and into her lap. Since they forbade servants from bothering them on the nights of their dinners, only one person could have laid it atop her while she slept.

“Did you —?”

“Shana is trying to break down the door,” he interrupted, referring to her lady’s maid. “But I figured you might not want the palace gossip to include you sleeping on the couch, so I’ve put her off.”

He handed her a mug of something hot — her favorite tea.

She couldn’t ease the lump in her throat at his kindness in spite of the pain she caused him last night. “I — thank you, Alistair.”

He shrugged and flashed that grin again. “It wasn’t entirely unselfish. By keeping Shana out, I was able to keep William out, too.”

Anora glanced at him for the first time, noting that he was already dressed and ready for the day. Attempting to hide her smirk in her mug, she muttered, “I should have known.”

“I can dress myself!” Alistair protested, as he had every morning since his coronation. “I never get a moment alone! Dressing and bathing are where I draw the lines and —”

“Even those have been hard won,” she finished for him, smiling at the familiar. “Yes, I know.”

As she finally looked up at him, hoping they could forget last night, his face fell, those ever-expressive eyes of his filling with a pain she had caused. With apparent effort, he swallowed and looked away.

“Alistair,” she began, not wanting to leave things like this. “About last night —”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said to forget I brought it up.” Alistair’s grin was back, even brittler than before. “It’ll be better for everyone. I should thank you for …” His voice shook and gave out, and Anora’s heart ached, but he continued valiantly. “For disavowing me of a stupid notion before I let it get too out of hand.”

Her tears returned, but she refused to let them fall, for both their sakes. “Please don’t say that. It wasn’t stupid. I’m sor —”

“Nope!” Alistair said, covering his ears and heading for the door. “We’re forgetting it, remember? We both just had too much wine last night. It’s happened before, and no doubt it’ll happen again. Are you ready for me to let Shana in?”

“Give me a minute, and then yes.”

Alistair nodded. “I’ll see you at the meeting.”

She spent half of that minute searching for the rose she’d fallen asleep with, but it was gone. She allowed herself one long look at the door Alistair had left through; she had hoped to keep it, but perhaps that was too much to ask.

Then she grabbed the blanket and headed to her room. Shutting the door behind her, she shimmied out of yesterday’s dress and into her bedclothes just in time for Shana to knock and ask if she needed assistance.

She had, over the past several months, taken a page from Alistair’s book and started to dress herself more often than not, though she hadn’t, unlike Alistair, shunned Shana’s assistance completely. Instead, she had shifted Shana’s responsibilities — meaning that she was responsible for the general upkeep of Anora’s wardrobe and accessories, but only dressed or did her hair when Anora required extra assistance, usually for special events.

At Alistair’s urging, they had also increased the pay for all the servants of the palace, including and especially Shana. Anora, having always lived in a place supported by servants and never having to, as Alistair had described it, “work for a living,” didn’t know what sorts of wages were considered good or bad. Alistair seemed to, though, and he insisted on paying everyone in the palace “better than just good” because they, as royals, should set a good example for the people of Ferelden.

One of the things that had kept her up all night worrying was how their injured relationship might affect their rule. Their marriage was solely a political one, and so far Ferelden had improved immensely, considering it had been devastated by a Blight less than a year prior. They worked better as a team of opposites, each one’s skills and flaws complementing the other’s, and ruining that balance by adding unnecessary romance was at best ill-advised and at worst utterly selfish. And rulers were never selfish.

The most baffling aspect of the situation, and the main thing that had kept her from sleep, was why Alistair would fall in love with her in the first place. She was not a nice woman, and she had long ago accepted that about herself. Once it became clear that Cailan was utterly incapable of ruling the country in any serious or sufficient way, someone had been required to step into Maric’s shoes, and she had more than risen to the occasion. So what if that meant she had lost friends, or that even her allies called her shrewish? She reveled in that moniker. If being a shrew was what Ferelden required of her, then she would gladly do it, because a ruler, above all else, was — of course — never selfish.

But Alistair more than anyone had been on the receiving end of that shrewishness (and many times utter selfishness), right from the moment they’d met.

Though he and Warden Cousland had saved her from her father and Howe’s clutches, she had allowed them to be arrested so she could escape. Unselfish, she’d told herself then (unfair and unkind, she knew now), because as Ferelden’s ruler, her safety was a priority.

She had been willing to let him die at the hands of her father’s torturers at Fort Drakon, if it meant saving the Warden and, by extension, Ferelden. Protecting her country from the potential of an unfit king couldn’t be selfish. (But of course it was; believing otherwise was her father’s thinking.)

At the idea of a political marriage between them, her first reaction was to say, aloud and in public, that “it would be like marrying Cailan’s twin.” She’d only heard later just how much that comment had hurt him.

She had been ready and willing, had she won the Landsmeet, to execute him on the spot in order to keep potential uprisings in his name at bay. For Ferelden, and therefore unselfish. (For herself, and therefore downright cruel.)

The night before the Battle of Denerim, when he’d come to speak with her about her safety and his potential to die, she had assured him that, should he fall, “I shall ensure the country continues to function. Cailan had nothing to do with that, nor will you. My life, in fact, will change little. I am merely exchanging one of Maric’s sons for another.”

When he’d responded with that grin that always covered his pain, “Well, maybe you’ll get lucky and I’ll die tomorrow, and then you won’t have to worry about anything changing,” not only had the thought already crossed her mind, but she had, at one point, hoped for it.

For more than five years now she had been a cruel, cold woman, Queen Anora of Ferelden, who even Empress Celene, champion of the Orlesian Grand Game, had called, “a solitary rose among brambles.” Why, _how_ could a good, kind man such as Alistair fall in love with her?

“… the king, Your Majesty?” Shana asked.

Anora blinked, shaken from her thoughts. “I’m sorry, Shana. My mind was thousands of miles away. What was that?”

“I asked if there was something the matter with the king,” Shana repeated, her voice quiet. “He seemed upset at me when he turned me away. It was very unlike him.”

“That does sound very unlike him.” Anora fought back tears. “I’m afraid he’s not feeling well today.”

A blatant lie, when _she _was the reason he was so unlike himself today. She, the shrewish queen, had hurt the kindest man she had ever met.

This was exactly the reason she had nipped this in the bud. He deserved far better than to be in love with the likes of her.

And Anora Mac Tir Theirin would never again be at the mercy of a man. Never again would she sacrifice herself, her choices, her freedom, for a man. She was no longer a pawn in someone else’s game.

She was a _queen_. The strongest piece on the whole board.

And no man, no matter how kind or handsome he was, no matter how he felt for her, no matter how upset he was that she could not and would not return his feelings, would ever take that from her.

Never again.

* * *

Anora didn’t see Alistair much the rest of the week. He attended morning council meetings as always, though without his usual humor or even participation. Anora had forgotten how boring those meetings had been before his intermittent quips and outsider suggestions. Now he was too quiet, and though she knew everyone noticed, she refused to acknowledge that anything was different.

But they were a team, and she needed his advice and opinions to balance hers. So at the end of the week, after putting off a decision for days, she asked him a direct question in front of a roomful of advisors.

“We must find and arrest these potential assassins, use them to find their ringleaders, and make an example of all of them. What do you think, Your Majesty?” She addressed him as she always did in public. She was cold, calculating, political, and formal.

Alistair, who had been staring out the window with his chin in his hand, blinked and looked at her. “What kind of example?”

So he had been paying attention. She smiled her most placid, _queenly_ smile. “The sort of example that will discourage future assassination attempts.”

Alistair heaved a sigh and leaned forward. “There hasn’t even been a present assassination attempt. Unless I missed someone firing something sharp at one of us?” he asked the rest of the room. “I know I’ve been a little out of it lately, but I don’t think my Warden reflexes have deteriorated that much.”

He didn’t look at Anora, but she knew the sting of his comment had been aimed at her.

“No, Your Majesty,” came various murmurs from around the table.

“Then I think we should consider the rumors just that, and hold off on the example-making executions until they become more than that.” Alistair met Anora’s gaze long enough to raise and lower his eyebrows once before turning to the rest of the advisors.

Balance — his kindness and compassion against her calculations and politics.

“As for this tour of Ferelden we’re supposed to be making soon,” Alistair continued, returning to the very first topic they’d discussed. “Let’s get back to that next week. I have a couple of ideas. Is that all for today?” he asked with a weariness she’d never heard from him.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Great.” He stood, and so did everyone in the room, including Anora. “I’m sure the Queen can handle anything else that comes up.”

And he left the room without another word.

The advisors looked to Anora, and she wondered if they, too, had noticed him address her as _the Queen_ rather than by her given name, like he usually did.

“Let me know the instant these rumors become more than that,” she snapped. “You’re dismissed.”

She found him, as she had every day this week, in the sparring area for the Royal Guard. He was alone, as he had been every other day, hacking away at the training dummies.

He didn’t stop when he saw her, just continued as if he hadn’t; she didn’t recognize any specific forms in his movements and wondered if there was any method to these sessions at all.

After a dozen or so more swings, he sliced off the dummy’s head, to her and his apparent surprise.

“Damn it,” he muttered. “That’s going to get me another lecture from Harkwold.” He sat heavily on a bench and began to sharpen his sword. “Did you need something?”

She crossed her arms and watched him for a few moments, weighing her thoughts. After a week of near-complete avoidance, she decided to address the dragon in the room.

“I wanted to see how you were … holding up.”

He laughed, but it was mirthless and bitter, so unlike the one she loved so much. It made her heart ache.

As did the fact that the laugh seemed to be his only answer.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said finally, pausing in his motions to stare at nothing. “About this tour of the country everyone keeps mentioning. I’d like to do it.”

She blinked. That hadn’t been what she was expecting him to say, but —

“Alone,” he added with a finality that settled like a dense pit in her stomach.

“Alone? As in —”

“As in me and whatever retinue everyone decides I need. And not you.”

Anora’s mouth fell open at that, and she inhaled sharply. “I … see.”

“Not —” Alistair set down his sword and the whetstone and rubbed his face roughly. “That came out harsher than I meant it to.” He ran a hand through his sweat damp hair and finally met her eyes. “It’s just that lately I’ve been feeling a bit smothered, and I think I could use a break from all …” He waved his arm in a giant circle. “This.”

Anora nodded, unsure what, if anything, she should say.

“You don’t like traveling anyway, and the people love me for some reason I still can’t fathom,” he continued. “And since I need a break, I thought it could be a good thing for everyone.”

“And what of these rumors of assassins?” she asked, since that was the reason the trip was up for debate in the first place.

“There’s always rumors of assassins,” Alistair said with a shrug. “And isn’t this round mostly about you?”

His smirk softened the blow that the comment might otherwise have struck, and she rolled her eyes.

“But I’ve been thinking about that, too. If there is anything to them, splitting us up wouldn’t be a bad idea. You can stay here in the palace surrounded by guards and doing all the stuff I hate.”

_Freedom_, a little voice whispered in the back of Anora’s head. No man controlling her. Even if Alistair was as far from controlling as a man could get.

“And what about you? Being on the road puts you more at risk.” She quickly added, “Assuming, of course, that these rumors put you in any danger.”

“Of course.” Alistair blessed her with one of his genuine smiles for an instant. “I’ll be on the move, making a harder target for assassins and doing all the things _you_ hate.”

He picked up the whetstone and began to sharpen his sword again.

“And I was thinking of getting the old gang back together.” Based on its placement and his tone, it seemed like an afterthought, but Anora knew Alistair well enough to know this was his main reason. “Things have quieted down in Amaranthine, and Vigil’s Keep is being rebuilt,” he said softly.

Alistair had been — and clearly still was — wracked with guilt and helplessness at being unable to assist his fellow Fereldan Wardens. Anora had comforted him through nightmares for weeks after they’d heard of the immense casualties.

He cleared his throat and said, almost cheerily in comparison, “So Dom can take some time for a much-needed break,” referring to Warden-Commander Domnall Cousland, the Hero of Ferelden — and the man who executed Anora’s father. For Alistair’s sake, she kept her personal hatred for Cousland to herself. “Zev stopped by a couple weeks ago to say he’s around for a while, Leliana wanted to spend some time with friends before she takes a position in Val Royeaux working for the Divine, and Wynne wants to tour Ferelden before she meets up with Shale to head to Tevinter.”

The way he lit up when he talked about his friends from the Blight made Anora simultaneously pleased (to hear him speak so fondly of them) and distressed (that he seemed so lonely now).

“… Sten was headed back to Seheron, and Oghren’s spending some much-needed time with his new kid, which is both heartwarming and incredibly disturbing. He’s a Warden _and_ a father now! And Morr — well, we won’t have everyone, but most of us, and I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to keep me safe from assassins. I mean, Zev alone —” His gaze wandered toward her and he stopped abruptly. “Sorry. I was babbling, I know.”

“Don’t be!” she insisted. “I agree. You should go.”

He opened his mouth, as if ready to argue, and then closed it again, surprised. “I — thank you.”

“You don’t need my permission, but if you want my blessing, you have it. I don’t want you to feel … trapped.”

“I just need a little time, that’s all,” he said. “Get my head back on straight. A couple months of traveling around Ferelden, and I’ll probably be begging to sleep in a royal bed again!”

Anora’s smile was only a little forced. “I understand.”

And she did, truly. Even if she didn’t like it.

Alistair nodded to himself. “Okay. I’ll make arrangements. Ideally, I’d like to leave in the next few days, but a week is probably more likely.” He stood, sheathed his sword, and looked guiltily at the decapitated dummy. “Don’t tell Captain Harkwold that was me,” he said, referring to the captain of the Royal Guard. “She’ll yell at me again. Or worse, ask me to demonstrate during training.”

She laughed, and he looked at her sharply, his eyes softening to something sweeter and sadder. As he passed on his way out, he watched her with just the hint of a smile.

“Alistair?” she asked before he could get too far.

He turned to her expectantly.

“Do you think that —” She let out a sigh. “Never mind.” The question, she realized too late, was an unfair and painful one to ask him right now.

“What?” He took a step toward her, concerned.

Concerned. For her. Maker damn him, why did he always have to be so kind?

Her question was not for the good of Ferelden; it was for herself. And it was oh, so very selfish, and perhaps even cruel.

She turned away.

“N —” He stopped himself with a sigh. “Anora?”

It was the realization that she’d lost her nickname — _his_ nickname for _her_ — that finally forced the question from her, like air huffing from her lungs after a punch in the gut.

“Do you think we’ll ever go back to the way things were before?”

His voice shook when he finally spoke, and Anora closed her eyes against his pain. “I don’t know.” It meant something to her that he required no clarification. “I sure hope so because Maker knows ‘until death do us part’ is a long time. Well, ish, what with the whole …”

He waved toward himself, indicating the Calling, which he’d once explained to Anora as a Warden’s death sentence, their reward for fighting darkspawn.

Then Alistair laughed through the thickness in his voice. “I promise to try, Nor. For you.”

He left without another word, and two days later, he left without saying goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Did you know that nowhere on the vast expanse of the internet is there a video or transcript of what happens if you reject Alistair's expression of feelings? It does not exist! (Likely because no one in their right mind wants to see that.) So I had to pull up an old save and _reject him myself! Multiple times_, in order to write down the whole dialogue. It was awful, and I whimpered, aloud, "I'M SO SORRY, ALISTAIR!!" I hope you all appreciate how much I sacrifice for my art.


	2. Middlegame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The middlegame phase of a chess game consists of tactical moves to achieve some gain, which can include capturing the opponent’s pieces and **setting up attacks against the opponent’s king**. There is no clear line between the opening and middlegame phases, but the middlegame generally occurs once **most of the pieces have been moved in some way**.

Alistair was gone for three months. He, along with the Hero of Ferelden and several other of their companions from during the Blight, traveled across the country where they were met in every village, town, city, and arling by masses of Fereldans who couldn’t wait to meet their (relatively) new king.

In his absence, Anora ran the country from the palace in Denerim.

She realized within the first week that he’d been correct in his assessment — she could manipulate and maneuver politics in whatever way she wished, free at long last from the control of a man.

And Alistair, well. He was free from the pomp and ceremony and _her_ and everything else that made him feel trapped in the home they shared.

She knew how he fared because of his letters. Approximately once per week, he would send a report addressed to her and their council, from which she had to read aloud passages such as, _“If I were to rank the arlings and banns based on what sort of gifts they give me, South Reach would be winning with its gift of a lovely bottle of Legacy White Shear, and the Southern Bannorn would be in distant last place because Bann Ceorlic gave me … a wooden shield. He swore it belonged to some famous old guy from history, but I’m pretty sure he just hates me. Oh, p.s. don’t read this bit out loud to the council.”_

Going forward, she always made sure to read over the reports beforehand, though after her strongly worded chastisement and his sincere (almost overwrought) apology, her precaution was rendered moot. That was when he began to send her separate letters along with the reports.

They sometimes contained political information he felt the council shouldn’t be privy to: _Next time we need to visit the Southern Bannorn, you should go because Bann Ceorlic _really_ hates me._

Other times he would reference a running joke they shared: _“No assassins yet, but just to be safe, make sure you have a substitute Official Food Taster until I can resume my duties!” _(As with many things Alistair-related, she couldn’t remember when that reference had shifted from a bitter assessment of their contentious relationship to a joke they made regularly in good fun, but reading it in his letter brought a smile to her face.)

And, more often as time went on, his letters discussed topics of a more personal nature: _“I forgot how much I missed being away from the city. Denerim is nice, of course, and I shouldn’t complain about living in a fancy palace when some can’t afford food or a thatched roof hut, but I love being able to make camp and look up at the stars as I fall asleep. Sometimes I worry that the time I spent traveling Ferelden gathering armies to fight the archdemon will end up being the best parts of my life. How pathetic is that?”_ (It wasn’t pathetic at all; in fact, it broke her heart that he felt that way.)

But while Alistair seemed to thrive away from Denerim and the constraints of the throne, Anora’s feelings on his absence were decidedly more mixed. On the one hand, she adored the power she could finally wield in the way she’d wanted since Cailan’s death — meeting as sole leader of the advisory council, listening to the concerns of both commoners and nobles who bowed before her as she held audience in the throne room, hearing no contradictions to her ideas from condescending men who felt themselves her superior. Or rather, upon even a sniff of the latter, informing them through her words and actions that they would not be tolerated.

On the other hand, Alistair left behind him a palpable emptiness in the palace. He was a big man — in all senses of the word — with a large, gregarious personality. Council meetings were more boring and less, dare she think it, _fun_. They no longer consisted of discussions and debates, as her advisors agreed with her opinions on most topics. Without Alistair to provide counterarguments, the meetings were so short they hardly seemed necessary.

Holding audience in the throne room wasn’t quite the same, either. There was an air of unpleasantness that she couldn’t decipher, which made her avoid and even dread the sessions in a way she hadn’t before. After a few weeks, she’d finally decided on the reason — Alistair’s absence had the same sobering effect here as on the council meetings — until a bann and his freeholder arrived in the hopes that she settle their argument.

Upon their entrance to the throne room, before a word was spoken or knee bowed, the bann gave a subtle but smug smirk, while the freeholder seemed to slump in spite of her otherwise impeccable deportment. In that moment, the discomfort she’d sensed since Alistair had left coalesced into something solid — the nobles had all known that she, a noble herself, would side with them, and the commoners had all come to the same conclusion. The implication being, of course, that Alistair provided, as she had always believed, a much-needed balance to her rule. Those of non-noble birth saw him, the bastard son of King Maric, as a champion, and in his absence they felt unrepresented.

So stunned was she by the revelation that she delayed that and all her other appointments until the next day, and she spent that night lying awake, reassessing every decision she had made without Alistair. She had always considered herself a fair ruler, but as she looked back, nearly all of her decisions had favored the nobles.

As Alistair’s letters had begun to veer into the personal by that point, she sat at her desk in the wee hours of the morning, intending to write to him for advice when she remembered she hadn’t actually heard the grievance. Instead, she wrote of her revelation and the concerns that plagued her as a result. Before she could reconsider, she sealed the letter and journeyed across the castle to place it on the desk of the chancellor to be sent at the first opportunity. Upon her return to bed, she slept soundly for the first time in weeks.

Although she woke up regretting that she’d so thoroughly prevented herself from reclaiming and burning the letter in the cold light of day, she was adamant about her announcement to the council and then those who had brought their grievances. She would hear all citizens already in Denerim to present their cases, but unless an immediate decision was required, all judgments would be delayed until the king returned.

She knew she’d made the correct decision when she saw the reactions of the commoners in the audience — sighs of relief, hands over mouths, teary eyes lifted to the Maker. She turned her back on the crowd before she saw the nobles’ reactions, but she heard enough angry murmurs as she left to make her smirk.

The wait to hear back from him felt longer than usual, but when she received his next letter, she was rewarded for her patience. Twice as thick as normal, it contained two separate letters for her. The first read as all the others did; nothing stood out, but there were a few jokes and comments here and there that made her smile. (_”Today I cut myself shaving and three separate people thought I was going to die.”_ _“It’s official — West Hills has pushed past South Reach with its gift of an entire case(!!!) of brandy.”_ _“Forget assassins. I think this Fereldan summer is trying to kill me.”_)

She tamped down her disappointment as she opened the second letter. It looked to be written hurriedly, and though the hand was far messier, she still recognized it as Alistair’s.

> _Nor,_
> 
> _I only just received your most recent letter, and I’m writing this as quickly as I can to be able to respond with this next round of post. So I apologize if it’s a bit poorly organized or practically illegible._
> 
> _For one of the few times in my life, I admit I’m not exactly sure what to say. I’m flattered, I suppose, that my absence has been so obvious to you. It means I’m not completely useless at ruling the country! Trust me, that’s even more of a surprise to me than it probably is to you._
> 
> _I suppose that until I get any more information on the What of the decisions, I should talk about the How and Why bits. I’m impressed and maybe even a little bit proud (and I don’t mean that in a condescending way, I hope it doesn’t sound it) that you recognized what was happening. If you want, I’d be happy to go back and discuss the decisions you’ve already made — it nothing else, we may be able to help out a few freeholders who might otherwise lose — but I trust you. After all, you figured out the issue and plan to put off the judgments until I get back. You’re the actual, experienced queen. I’m just a bastard with the right father._
> 
> _We do make a good team, don’t we? It’s easy to forget with all the <strike>bullshit</strike> … everything. <strike>I can’t wait —I need to —I want to b —I lo —</strike>_
> 
> _ <strike>I miss</strike> _ _ <strike>need</strike> <strike>lo</strike> <strike>UGH!!!</strike>_
> 
> _I miss you, too._
> 
> _ <strike>Love,</strike> _ _ <strike>Yours,</strike> <strike>Sincerely,</strike>_
> 
> _Alistair_

Anora nearly dropped the letter. Had she said she _missed_ him? She couldn’t recall, but she’d been writing to him urgently in the half-darkness in the middle of the night, so it was possible. With the amount of space filled with cross-outs she couldn’t read, she had to wonder what else she might have let slip.

Then she noticed a postscript.

> _P.S. We’ve been hearing assassination rumors around, but they’re all aimed in your direction. Zev suggested that there might be someone on the inside, so watch yourself, please. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you while I was gallivanting around the countryside. Be a terrible king, to start. Just … be safe._

For the first time since he’d left, she felt something ease in her chest. She still wasn’t entirely sure what it was, though Maker knew she’d spent enough nights awake trying to understand. But reading in his hand — and hearing in his voice, at least in her head — his “I miss you” and “Be safe” … she found a comfort in that, not unlike the comforts he provided after her nightmares.

And yes, she missed him. She missed his jokes (at both their expenses), his smile, his _laugh_. Maker, did she miss his laugh. She missed their weekly dinners and their discussions about matters of state that led to conversations about everything and nothing at all.

There was a hole in her chest that he left empty behind him, and it ached for his return.

She missed her best friend.

She could only hope that the next month and a half would go by quickly, and he would be home soon.

* * *

Unfortunately, nothing that Anora had hoped for came to pass.

A couple of weeks after she received his hastily written letter — and wrote her response, which veered far more into the personal than she’d originally intended — a letter in an unfamiliar hand joined those of Alistair.

Concerned, she opened it first.

_Stop responding to his private letters._

_YOU’RE NOT HELPING._

_— D.C._

D.C. Domnall Cousland, the Hero of Ferelden, Warden-Commander of the Wardens in Ferelden, Arl of Amaranthine.

His words struck her like a knife to the heart.

Unsurprising, as his sword had struck her father’s head from his body.

There was no love lost between Cousland and herself — he blamed her for the sins of Rendon Howe and her father as much as he blamed the men themselves, assuming that her refusal to support Alistair as king implied conspiracy with her father, when all she had wanted was what was best for Ferelden. He’d taken, as far as she could tell, great pleasure in dueling and executing her father for his crimes, and she would have been more than happy to never see or hear from him again.

But he was one of Alistair’s closest friends — perhaps his even his closest.

The purpose of Alistair’s trip was for him to get away from the palace, the throne, Denerim … and her.

And according to Cousland, her letters weren’t helping.

Was she leading him on with every letter? Giving him false hope with every accidental _I miss you_? The only reason she’d responded to his private letters had been to ask his advice on the judgments of grievances. She’d wanted Alistair’s advice, not His Majesty Alistair Theirin’s. The letters had only spiraled from there.

But hurting him was the last thing she wanted — the last thing she had _ever_ wanted.

So, once again, she acquiesced to a not-quite-request from the Hero of Ferelden and scaled back her correspondence. Official reports and only an occasional polite but distant response to any personal or private letters he sent.

He noticed, of course. Alistair, whatever anyone (including Anora, initially) thought of him, was not a stupid man.

_Your last letter was rather abrupt. I hope I didn’t upset you_, he wrote in one letter.

_I hope all is well with you. I miss hearing about the unimportant goings-on of the palace_, read another.

_I never thought I’d say this, but three months away seems like too long_, he wrote later. _I actually kind of miss it all._

But she knew what he left out.

Several weeks after she’d pulled away, she could tell from his hand he was angry. _I know what Dom told you, and I’m sorry about that. He had no right to interfere in my business. Did I tell him that going into the Wilds on a witch hunt would be pointless? No, not even when I was right. And just because he’s the damned Hero of Ferelden doesn’t mean you have to do what he says, and neither do I. I mean — you’re the Queen, for Maker’s sake! I’ve never known you to do anything because someone else told you to. So if that’s why you <strike>don’t want to</strike> <strike>won’t</strike> have stopped responding, you should know that it’s not necessary. I like your letters, <strike>Nor,</strike> because I <strike>miss you like there’s a whole in my chest</strike> <strike>like crazy</strike> <strike>like I</strike> _

A series of cross-outs littered the rest of the page, each scratched out more furiously than the last, resulting in at least two holes toward the bottom of the page, which finished with only a few words.

_I hate this. I’m sorry._

It wasn’t even signed.

She clutched the letter to her chest, leaned back in her chair, and cried. She could feel his pain, another hole scratched onto her heart like it, too, was a piece of parchment that couldn’t contain what he was feeling.

She also hated this.

His private letters didn’t cease after that, though they, like hers before, grew more distant, the only topics of discussion those that were not quite appropriate to be presented to the council.

_Last stop this week. Waking Sea. It’s finally happened — I miss the palace and my fancy royal bed. Three months is a long time to be away from home. And I’m pretty sure the mabari all had their puppies by now and I missed it! Hopefully the puppies are still cute and little — tell me they’re still cute and little, please? No, wait, don’t. I’ll probably be back by the time your letter gets to me. I will just hope and pray that the Maker will be kind to me and the puppies will still be cute and tiny. See you soon. -A_

Anora laughed out loud when she read what would be his final letter. Three months was far too long to be away from home — and yes, she teared up at the fact that he considered the palace to be his home. From everything she knew about him, he’d never had a true home before — between Redcliffe (and oh, if she ever saw Lady Isolde, that woman would get a piece of Anora’s mind about her treatment of Alistair) and the Chantry and the Grey Wardens and his friends with whom he traveled during the Blight (the latter two of which were less about a place and more about the people), Alistair had never been in one safe, comforting place long enough to consider it home.

But here, with her? He hated being away for so long. It was his first home. And she’d never been happier.

* * *

Anora could hardly contain her excitement as she counted down the days until Alistair’s return. She planned to insist that they make up for all of their missed weekly dinners by having dinner the first several nights upon his return so that she could catch him up on everything that had happened in the palace during his absence and he could tell her about the events of his trip that were too unimportant to put in the letters and reports. Maker, it had been Ages since she’d seen his smile and heard his laugh, and she felt lesser for it.

She was conscious of the way that everyone, from the chancellor to the council to Shana, looked at her, with a sort of knowing, indulgent smile, but they knew nothing. They didn’t understand that Alistair was her closest friend and confidant, and that she had missed his advice and conversation as well as his enjoyable company. They might have thought they knew about her increasing sleeplessness, but they didn’t know that since he’d left, her nightmares had not only increased, but their topic had shifted from past trauma to future fears — several times a week now she woke in a cold sweat from a horrific dream in which she or Alistair perished in an assassination attempt. (His letters’ growing warnings that she was a target and requests for her to stay safe did not help nearly as much as his strong safe arms always had.)

As much as the palace gossips liked to imagine they knew about her and Alistair’s relationship, she was confident they understood nothing in actuality.

The night before he was to return, sleep eluded her almost completely, and when it finally did come, her dreams consisted of Alistair and his grin and his laugh, taking her in his arms and kissing her deeply, before insisting they “get reacquainted” and throwing her onto her bed, using his fingers and then his tongue to —

“Your Majesty!” Shana called, pounding on the door to Anora’s bedroom. “Are you well?”

Anora gasped and shot into a sitting position, her breathing labored, her smallclothes far wetter than they should have been.

Hand flying to her mouth, she took a moment to regain control — what in Thedas had _that _been about? True, she and Alistair had not gone for as long as three months without sharing a bed, but that dream was nothing like reality.

For one, they had never kissed. Not really. Just as she’d refused to stay in bed with him after they’d finished, she had also refused any sort of kisses on the mouth aside from the public kisses occasionally required of them during appearances (such as their wedding). She had never been kissed by anyone like Alistair had kissed her in that dream.

“Come in, Shana,” she called, hand on her chest as she attempted to calm her pounding heart.

It was just a dream, she told herself. Dreams might hold some meaning to, say, the Dalish, but Anora had never held such beliefs. Alistair had been in her dream because he was returning today, and as for the other parts … well, it had been a while, and she was only human.

“Are you ill, Your Majesty?” Shana asked, having opened the curtains to the bright morning sun. “You are flushed.” She placed a cool hand on Anora’s forehead. “And warm. Should I call a healer?”

“No,” Anora insisted, getting out of bed and crossing to her closet. “I assure you, I am fine. Just …” She considered her words carefully. “Pleased that the king is returning today.”

“Ah,” said Shana, smiling that knowing smile in spite of Anora’s attempted deflection. “Of course.”

“’Of course’ what?” Anora snapped, before immediately apologizing. “I’m sorry. That was unkind.”

“No, Your Majesty,” Shana insisted. “It wasn’t my place.” With a soft smile, she added, “Would you like me to assist you with your hair today?”

Anora’s eyes narrowed at the woman, but decided in the end that she didn’t care what anyone in the palace might think. “Yes, I think I would.”

* * *

After lunch, while at her desk reviewing correspondence, a messenger informed her that “the king has returned.”

She stayed long enough to learn that he was in the stables before picking up her skirts and breaking into a run.

As she entered, she slowed to a walk in an attempt to collect herself and not look like she had, in fact, run to meet him. Because that would be silly, and she was not silly. She was Queen.

Who just happened to be excited that her king had returned.

Which was a perfectly normal thing to be after a three-month absence!

Smoothing her skirt — the dress was a new one, rather plain, in navy blue with silver accents — and reassuring herself that the style of her hair she had requested from Shana this morning was still in place, she advanced to where she heard voices.

“— Maker’s sake, just let the man do his job!” came a male voice that was burned into Anora’s brain. Her father’s murderer (and Hero of Ferelden), Domnall Cousland.

“Truly, Alistair, we are all weary.” A woman this time, of Fereldan origin. The mage Wynne.

“And this is the job you pay him for, no?” That was clearly Zevran, the Antivan elf assassin. “Why do you insist on depriving him of his wages?”

“I am _not_ depriving anyone of —”

Alistair’s voice was music to Anora’s ears. A large smile more befitting a giggling school girl than a queen arose on her face, and she pressed her hands to her burning cheeks to cool them.

Alistair scoffed, clearly annoyed. “Why is it a crime for me to want to unsaddle my horse, who, I should add, _I’ve been taking care of on my own for three months_?”

“Uh, maybe because you’ve been taking care of it for three months?” Cousland said. “If you take care of your horse yourself, then so do we, and I would really prefer to, I don’t know, not have to do that for a change.”

“Why do you insist on this now?” a new voice, a woman, with a distinctly Orlesian accent, asked. Leliana, the Chantry sister and bard, then. “It almost seems as if you are using this as an excuse to avoid something else.”

“Oh, _sì_,” Zevran said, and Anora could hear his mischievous smile. “You have been nothing but eager to return, and now that we are here, you wish to take care of your mount? What is it you are avoiding, my friend?”

Anora’s heart began to pound. Was it her? Should she turn around and go back to the castle?

“I’m not _avoiding _anything!” Alistair insisted, and his growing insistence on something that was clearly untrue had Anora rolling her eyes. Who did he think he was fooling? “I just —”

In her own annoyance, she stepped into view of the speakers, and everyone froze as they saw her.

Except, of course, for Alistair, whose back was to her.

“I just want to take care of her, okay?” He patted the horse’s rump. “She and I have been through a lot over the past few months, and maybe I want to do something that doesn’t require any thoughts before I track dirt all over the palace and get yelled at by everyone for —”

Alistair finally turned in the direction everyone was looking, and his words died in his throat.

“I — uh — Nor!” he stuttered, cheeks darkening to a truly impressive shade of red. “Hi!”

Grinning at his instinctual use of her nickname, Anora could only muster a, “Hi,” in return.

Alistair ran a hand through his hair — which, like the rest of him, was mussed and dirty from the ride — opened and closed his mouth a few times, and then said, more softly and with an adorable lopsided smile, “Hi.”

The gentle familiarity in that one word sent a shiver up Anora’s spine. She straightened — she was a _queen_ and she would purport herself as such — but couldn’t keep from smiling in return. “Hi,” she said, unintentionally matching Alistair’s tone and volume.

Alistair took a step toward her, mouth open as if to speak again, but Zevran stepped between them. “Ah, this is a new sort of Fereldan greeting, yes? Like Antivans kiss twice on each cheek, Fereldans exchange multiple ‘hi’s? In that case, Your Majesty.” He bowed deeply to Anora, though his eyes never left her. “Hi. I am Zevran Arainai, friend of Alistair’s, and I am ever so pleased to be in your humble presence yet again.” He held out a hand, and Anora automatically (as she’d been trained since a young age) extended her own. He took it and kissed it with a flourish. “How may I be of service?”

“Zev.” Alistair’s arms were crossed, and was he gritting his teeth? “She’s the queen. And also my wife.”

“I know these things, Alistair. Why do you repeat them now?”

Anora’s stomach fluttered at Alistair’s phrasing — _my wife_. She couldn’t remember when, if ever, he last referred to her as such, and there was something in his tone that she couldn’t completely understand, but which brought to mind her dream, and him taking her into his arms and kissing her until —

“Your Majesty,” several other voices chorused, and Anora blinked to find all except for Alistair bowing to her.

“Oh, that’s … quite unnecessary,” she said, feeling flustered for perhaps the first time in her life since Father first brought her to the Landsmeet at nine years of age. “Please, don’t. I only came down here to welcome …”

Three pairs of eyes twinkled knowingly while a fourth narrowed. But the one pair she cared about widened, accompanied by the barest hint of a smile.

She cleared her throat. “_All_ of you to the palace,” she insisted. “And I would like to invite you to —”

“Let me guess, a fancy banquet?” Cousland, owner of those narrowed eyes, asked, a single brow raised. “To brag about how the Hero of Ferelden” — his voice took on a mocking tone — “and friends are here?”

“Dom,” warned Alistair, well aware of their mutual enmity. “Don’t —”

But Anora didn’t need Alistair to defend her. She rose to her full height looked the Hero of Ferelden dead in the eyes. “Warden Cousland,” she said, and her tone could have given an ice dragon frostbite. “I assure you that were I to be giving a banquet in your honor, I would not do so in a stealthy manner.” She met Alistair’s gaze for a fraction of a second, but his slight widening of his eyes — a clear warning to _Don’t_ — came too late. With her smallest _shrewish_ smile, she said, “If for no other reason than that invitations would need to go out at least a week in advance.”

Cousland blinked, speechless. Alistair, she noticed with not a small amount of pleasure, dropped his gaze and pressed his lips together in an apparent effort to keep from smiling.

“I would remind you,” she continued, “that I came to meet you all not as queen with fanfare, but privately, and my intention was to invite the king’s friends to stay here in the palace for as long as you wish before you continue on your journeys elsewhere. I daresay my _husband_” — and even she didn’t understand why she put such stress on the word — “does not want his friends to leave so quickly.”

Domnall Cousland was raised the second son of a teyrn, and as such was as well-versed in the practices of nobility as Anora was herself. Had he not been, he surely would have been gaping; as it was, he covered his slight jaw-drop with a deep breath and a deeper bow.

But anything he might have said was cut off by her Alistair’s chuckle.

“Told you,” Alistair murmured. “Pretty sure you owe me five sovereigns.”

Cousland rolled his eyes at Alistair before transitioning flawlessly into the last half of his bow. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we would be more than happy to accept your gracious invitation.”

She nodded to him, a cool and gracious queen, and then returned her gaze to the person she came to see. With only a moment’s hesitation, she walked toward Alistair, and before either of them could think twice, she wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug.

“Welcome home,” she murmured.

Alistair held her tight in his arms — yet somehow not tight enough for Anora — and said with a grin and a dip of his voice into its lower register that gave her goosebumps, “Missed me, did you?”

She pulled far enough away to take in all of him — his twinkling eyes, that brilliant grin, his filthy royal armor and mussed hair, the smell of dirt and sweat, and everything in between. With a grin of her own that made her cheeks ache, she said, “I suppose it was rather quiet around here, yes. Your absence was noted.”

And she turned around to lead the way back to the castle.

“Don’t pretend that’s not your way of saying you missed me!” Alistair called after her.

She smiled and continued on her way toward the palace.

* * *

Unfortunately, Anora hadn’t included in her calculations that inviting Alistair’s companions to stay at the palace meant that she had also invited them to dinner. Which meant that she and Alistair wouldn’t be able to begin making up for their missed weekly dinners until tomorrow.

And because Alistair needed to bathe and change, she didn’t see him until he arrived with the rest of his companions.

They sat, as they always did when they had guests, at either end of the table, while Alistair’s friends sat on either side of the table between them — Wynne and Cousland closest to Alistair, Zevran and Leliana near Anora.

Conversation flowed freely between the friends. Occasionally Leliana, Wynne, or Zevran attempted to bring her into the conversation, which was kind but unnecessary. Anora enjoyed watching and listening. She had never seen Alistair so relaxed and carefree and … happy. Seeing him like this brought more emotions forward than she’d expected, even in her excitement for his return.

Joy, of course, because it was impossible for anyone see Alistair smile and laugh without feeling at least somewhat happy. She half wondered if he’d defeated the archdemon just by talking to it and making it feel better about itself.

But dueling with the joy was a melancholy, a sadness so deep it hurt more to think about than her father’s descent into insanity. Because Alistair was a good man, just like her father had been once. What if the pressures of being king — or worse, the influence of her own calculating approach to politics — warped his core of goodness like her father’s hatred of Orlais had done to him?

Or, even more simply — what if he would be happier not being king?

A ruler put aside their own happiness for the good of the people, which Alistair had done. Anora would rather have him as a partner than not; losing him was a sacrifice she didn’t want to think about. But giving up her best friend so that he could be happy? She would do it, for him. She might even do it if the people of Ferelden suffered without him as king. But that was selfish of her.

Or was it? Could being unselfish be in some ways a selfish act? Perhaps, if she was saving herself the pain of seeing him fall like her father did. But then —

She blinked as something gently bounced off of her nose.

It was a piece of cheese.

“Anora?” Alistair said, and she realized that the entire table was staring at her with varying levels of concern.

With a scoff, she rubbed her nose and said, “Alistair, we have discussed this.”

“You’ve discussed … throwing cheese?” Cousland asked, wearing the first thing approaching a smile she’d seen from him since he arrived.

“Multiple times, in fact,” said Anora, leveling a glare at Alistair so mild that her lips quirked. “And yet it continues.”

“What can I say?” Alistair spread his hands magnanimously. “I am a simple man.”

“Who gets people’s attention by throwing food at their face?” Wynne’s eyebrows rose in disbelief and almost motherly disapproval.

“Excuse me, by throwing _cheese_,” Alistair corrected amid giggles and eye rolls. “And only at her. If I could ask her if she was okay without drawing attention to her, I would!”

Leliana shook her head. “Because launching cheese across the table is the height of subtlety.”

“It is for Alistair,” muttered Zevran.

Alistair’s vehement objection (_”I’ll have you all executed for such treasonous slander against the king!”_) successfully steered the conversation away from Anora. It did not escape her notice that he had done so at his own expense.

Nor did the concerned looks he kept giving her throughout the rest of the dinner.

Apparently unconvinced by her popping the piece of cheese into her mouth with a smirk, Alistair watched her with a slightly furrowed brow.

Maker, they would have a lot to discuss. If ever they had the chance.

* * *

At the conclusion of dinner, it was Alistair who stood and said, “All right everyone, I love you, but I’m exhausted and likely have lots of homework to catch up on, so if you wouldn’t mind clearing out, I’m sure the servants would appreciate it.”

Then, ignoring the only half-hearted groans (his companions looked as tired as he did) and Cousland’s scowl, he turned to Anora, who had stood up when he did out of habit.

“Care for dessert and a nightcap while we go over everything I missed?”

He smiled at Anora then, one of his truly genuine grins that she loved so much, and her stomach squirmed with excitement.

But though she wanted nothing more than to share some private time with Alistair, she returned his smile sadly; Cousland’s obvious disapproval could not be ignored, and she’d rather speak before he did.

“Catching up on homework can wait until tomorrow,” she said, conscious of both Cousland’s raised eyebrows and Alistair’s faltering grin. Only one of those reactions pleased her. “You have more than earned at least one night in a comfortable royal bed before your duties begin again.”

Alistair’s face fell then, and oh, it made Anora’s heart ache.

“But if by ‘everything you missed’ you mean the palace gossip, the age and size of the puppy litters, and the types of new cheeses the chefs ordered specifically for your return,” she continued, face as neutral as if she were discussing important matters of state, “then yes, I would be happy to join you for dessert and a nightcap.”

The absolutely ecstatic grin he gave her sped up her heart enough that she had to take a deep breath.

“But only if you bring some of that West Hills brandy you kept talking about,” she added.

“I think I can make that happen,” Alistair said, gaze never leaving hers.

They stood there in silence, smiling at each other like fools, and Anora’s chest warmed in a way that once again conjured the image of Alistair taking her in his arms and kissing her deeply —

“Your Majesty!” Surprisingly, it was Leliana who broke the spell, so to speak.

Alistair reddened and rubbed the back of his neck. “I told you, you don’t have to call me that.”

“Which is how you should know I wasn’t talking to you,” Leliana responded cheerfully. “I was addressing Her Majesty.”

She looked to Anora expectantly, while Alistair coughed and looked away with a murmured, “Right.”

“Ah — yes?” Anora said, confused. The Chantry-sister-turned-bard (or was it bard-turned-Chantry-sister?) had spoken perhaps three sentences to or at her since they’d arrived.

To Anora’s great surprise, Leliana stood and linked their arms as if they were the best of friends. “Might we be able to speak in private?”

Alistair let out an awkward chuckle — nowhere near his real laugh, it consisted of a barely strung together series laugh-adjacent syllables. “Ah-ha-ha-ha, absolutely not.”

Leliana laughed at him outright, providing a lovely and genuine musical counter to Alistair’s toneless forced chuckle, but Anora fixed him with her queenly _How dare you speak for me_ glare. It was difficult to tell which one made him recoil more. Although Anora would have liked to believe it was her, there was something eerily calculating in Leliana’s laugh that left her unsure.

“I only meant —” Alistair coughed, his attempted grin brittle and almost grotesque. “What exactly could you have to say to her that you can’t say in front of me?”

He looked to his other companions for assistance, but Wynne and Zevran merely seemed amused.

Cousland, however, to no one’s surprise, had something to say. “Yes, Leliana. What in Thedas could you possibly need to discuss in private with the Queen of Ferelden?”

“Why, shoes, of course!” Leliana announced cheerfully. “Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say _need_, Dom. I was attempting to be polite by not requiring you all to listen to talk of how much I love how Her Majesty’s shoes match perfectly with the style and tone of her beautiful dress!”

“Right,” Alistair said, deadpan. “But since Anora’s dresses are all made for her, you might have more luck speaking with the seamstresses or her chamber … maid …” Alistair gulped at the icy glare Anora speared him with. “Or I could stop speaking for her, as she is a woman of many interests and talents I likely haven’t discovered yet.”

“That might be wise.” Leliana smiled at Anora. “I would also love to discuss with you that look that makes even Alistair stop talking. It seems a gift and blessing from the Maker!”

There was a sharpness in her last remark that made Anora bristle, and she wondered if she should have swallowed her pride and let Alistair speak for her just this once.

But Leliana was already leading her away from the dining room.

“Leliana.”

Everyone froze at the sharp, commanding tone in which Alistair spoke the name, including (and especially?) Leliana herself.

Both women turned around, and Anora had never seen him look so imposing and _regal_.

Different images from her dream, the ones where he threw her onto the bed and hiked up her blue and silver skirt, using his fingers and then his tongue to —

“I’ll know if what you discuss upsets her, even if she doesn’t tell me,” King Alistair Theirin was saying. “And you and I will have a conversation you won’t like.”

Anora let out a sharp breath of surprise at the sheer authority he exuded.

Leliana, too, seemed taken aback before her smile — that knowing one from the palace staff that had so annoyed Anora — slowly grew from just a quirk of the lips to an enormous grin.

“I’m sure we’ll have a conversation soon,” she told Alistair. “But it won’t be anything like what you imagine.”

And with that, she swept from the room, practically dragging Anora behind her into the hallway.

* * *

“I do so love your dress, Your Majesty.” Leliana, arm in Anora’s, spoke as though they were walking in a garden and not like she had just had a standoff with the king of Ferelden.

“Thank you,” said Anora. Until she found her bearings in this conversation, her wardrobe was as safe a topic as any. “It’s new.”

“Oh, how wonderful! I do love wearing new dresses for the first time. The colors suit your complexion and bring out the lovely color of your eyes. And they happen to be those of the Grey Wardens!”

Anora blinked. “I … suppose they are. I had not thought of that.” She did not like where this was going. Apparently even clothing was not a safe topic of conversation with Sister Leliana.

“No? I suppose it must be a happy coincidence, then. Oh, you came to welcome us in the stables in your new dress! How kind of you to risk getting it dirty in order to go above and beyond your queenly duty to welcome Alistair’s friends.”

At that, Anora took control of their walk, guiding them via their still-joined arms to a room off the hallway — one of several parlors on the main floor, and thankfully empty of both guests and servants.

Anora nudged the door closed with her foot, and upon its gentle click, she dropped their arms — and the act — and rounded on Leliana.

“Now that you have discussed wardrobe sufficiently enough to remain truthful to Alistair, kindly explain the purpose of this interlude, Sister Leliana,” she demanded, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I am not a simpleton. Judging from the reactions of your companions and Alistair, can I assume it is in reference to what transpired between us prior to your trip?”

Leliana bowed her head in mild deference, or _Touché_, as the Orlesians said. “He told us what happened, yes.”

“And you are the one to chastise me?” Anora snorted. “All this time I thought it would be Cousland.”

“Because he wrote to you,” Leliana said, nodding. “Alistair was quite angry with him for —”

“He was right.” Anora sighed and turned away. “I was not helping.”

“But it was not his place to say so, and this is why Alistair was angry. He was adamant that none of us blame you, as your only crime was honesty. In his life, so many have lied to him for what they believed to be his own good, when he would rather have known the truth.”

Anora closed her eyes. “But I hurt him.”

“Better the quick cut of the truth than the festering infection of lies.”

Anora looked at her from the corner of her eye. “That does not sound like Alistair.”

“I poetically paraphrased.” Leliana smirked. “But, as we talk of truth, you should know that I did not wish to speak to you of Alistair and his feelings.”

“Then what?” Anora raised an eyebrow. “Unless you truly are that fond of my dress.”

Leliana laughed. “He was right. You are different.” At Anora’s frown, she shrugged. “Dom was convinced you purposefully seduced and rejected him so that you could maintain sole control over the throne in everything but name. Alistair insisted that you were not so conniving as we first thought. He told us you only want what is best for Ferelden, and that the two of you are a good team. And that you considered him a friend, and wished to be one again someday.”

Anora shook her head. “The woman he has fallen in love with does not exist. His feelings conceal the parts of me that a good man such as he could never love.”

Leliana said nothing in response.

After a time, Anora convinced herself that Leliana might be able to answer the question that had plagued her all evening.

“Is he happy?”

Leliana took a moment to respond. “He is … finding happiness.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“But it is what I am telling you,” Leliana said firmly. “In the year or so since I had seen him last, he seems to have found a purpose in his duty that was not present, say, when you married. Though he agreed that many of the finery and pomp were exhausting at times, he insisted that he did not, how did he put it? ‘Find it as nauseating’ as he thought he would.”

“Do you think …” Maker, Anora brushed away tears at the idea, but she forced herself to voice it. “Do you think he would be happier if he were not king? That is —” She moved to clarify before Leliana answered. “Were he given a choice to abdicate and did so, would he be happier?”

When Leliana answered, her voice had hardened. “Do you wish to push him out so you can rule alone?”

“No!” Anora spun around and grasped Leliana by the arm. “I would wish for him to stay, for I do believe, as he said, that we two as a pair are best for Ferelden. I only ask because —”

“You wish him to be happy,” Leliana finished softly, her eyes glassy.

Both women suddenly and simultaneously turned away from each other. Anora failed to hide a sniff, and if Leliana had attempted to do so, she did as well.

“I should not have asked you such a question,” Anora said, “and I would ask that you not tell —”

“Why did you meet us in the stables?” Leliana asked, the interruption frustrating but the change of topic welcome. “You wore a new dress in Grey Warden colors — whether intentional or not — to perhaps the filthiest place on the palace grounds in order to welcome people you either do not know well or actively dislike. Why?”

“It is my duty as queen to —”

“But you explicitly said you were there in private, not as queen. So it was obviously not out of duty.”

Anora cleared her throat and drew herself up, like the queen she was. “Sister Leliana, a woman who has been engaged or married to a prince or king since before she understood the definition of the word politics does not make many true friends. Alistair is my partner in ruling the country and the closest friend I’ve ever known, and I had not seen him in three months. It is no grand reveal that I missed him and was happy to welcome him home.”

“Of course,” Leliana said with the sort of innocence Anora could tell all the way from Val Royeaux was false. “But Your Majesty …” Here the bard-turned-Chantry-sister curtsied — Anora felt it almost like a mockery — and met her gaze. “The way you smile at him — it is not the way one smiles at a friend.”

Anora stood rooted to the spot. Alistair was her partner. Her _friend_. Yes, he was handsome, and Maker, he was quite good at pleasing her, but that was physical attraction only, as well as fulfilling their duty to the throne of Ferelden.

As a king, Anora respected Alistair. She admired his seemingly infinite compassion and empathy and appreciated his ability to show her a point of view she hadn’t previously considered. She couldn’t imagine a better pair of rulers for Ferelden.

As a man, Anora cared for Alistair. He was a good man, kind and thoughtful, with just the right amount of idealism. He was goofy and funny and never too serious, which made him a perfect friend for Anora, who had always been taught to think of the greater good, both as a future teyrna and a future queen. He was born a bastard, hidden and ignored; she was born into nobility, raised from a young age to believe she was destined for greatness. His humility taught her how to avoid the sin of hubris, while his lack of confidence taught her the value of self-assurance.

But somehow all of those things described Alistair while simultaneously missing the things that she liked most, which also happened to be everything she used to despise about him. The way, whenever they held court, he leaned over to whisper in her ear, seeming to all observers to speak of some important matter of state, but actually remarking on the ugliness of a bann’s hat. The furrow in his brow when he felt that a law — usually one that had been around for literal Ages — was wrong or unfair. The glassiness of tears when he heard that a citizen had lost family or friends to darkspawn, or their home to the Blight. The twinkle in his eye when he spoke to children, pretending to be stabbed by their toy swords and declaring them the new king, even going so far as to place his crown on their heads.

His smile that always made her stomach swoop, or his laugh that caused her heart to flutter. The way he watched her when he thought she couldn’t see — a gaze filled with admiration and respect, things Anora had never gained from anyone else in her life. The attempt to hide his grin whenever he made her laugh. The tone of his voice whenever he called her Nor.

But all of those things, they weren’t … whatever Leliana was suggesting. They couldn’t be.

Could they?

Anora turned to Leliana, now at the door. “Just what sort of Chantry sister are you?” she demanded.

“A bardic one.” Leliana smiled over her shoulder. “Who loves a good romance.”

* * *

Only when Anora had finally regained enough control of her thoughts and emotions to sufficiently ignore them did she, as graceful and composed as ever, enter her and Alistair’s private chambers.

Alistair ceased his erratic pacing the instant he saw her in the doorway. “There you are!”

As she closed the door, he rushed to her, his dinner attire rather debonairly loosened — formal pants but in only stockinged feet, formal tunic unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows.

“Maker’s breath, I almost went looking for you. What took so long?”

Noting the time, she said, “Leliana and I spoke for barely half of an hour.” Her eyebrow raised of its own accord. “That is hardly cause for alarm. You speak as if I were missing for days.”

“What did she want to talk to you about?” Alistair asked, either not hearing or choosing to ignore her response.

“Shoes,” Anora said with a slight smirk. “But mostly my dress. She knows so much about fashion I felt like I was speaking with my seamstress.” Feeling her cheeks heat at the memory of Leliana’s compliments, she looked down at the gown. “She said it brings out the color of my eyes.”

“You do look absolutely enchanting in blue,” said Alistair. Anora looked up in time to catch the almost dazed expression on his face. Then he shook himself, and his voice darkened. “Just fashion? She didn’t threaten you?”

Anora laughed out loud, though at the absurdity of his concern or in relief at its outlandishness, she wasn’t quite sure. “With what? Her satin shoes?”

He scoffed. “Though I don’t doubt she _could_, I was thinking more about her bow or knives, both of which she is deceivingly deadly with.”

“Well, she was obviously not carrying a bow —”

“She could have hidden one somewhere!”

“— and what, do you think she carries knives hidden on her person?”

“Yes?” The word was technically a question, but of the rather insulting variety. “Dom does. Zev does. _I _do!” Before she had a chance to wonder where, exactly, his knives were hidden, he continued, “Hang on, why don’t you? There’s been rumors of assassins —

“There’s always rumors of assassins.” Intentionally mimicking his dismissive response prior to his trip, she smirked.

He did not return it. “You should be carrying something to defend yourself with.”

“I’m constantly surrounded by guards and rarely leave the palace.”

“I don’t care. Zev thinks that —”

“Can we just … have dessert?” The words came out less defensive, as she’d intended, than soft, which she had not.

Either way, they had their effect. Alistair sighed and uncrossed his arms, his shoulders seeming to visibly lower from somewhere around his ears.

“Yes,” he said, with his gentle smile. “Work tomorrow.” He led the way to the table they usually set up in front of the fireplace, but whirled around to point a finger in her face. “But I’m not letting this go.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she murmured, raising her eyebrows on the word _dream_.

Alistair turned a sudden and surprising shade of red before clearing his throat and hurrying to the table to pull her chair out.

She flashed a confused smirk at his back, but followed him.

Only when she moved to sit did she see finally the beautiful setting.

One of their weekly dinner rules (_“One — Just us, no servants. Two — No work talk. Three — Plenty of wine …”_) was that the food and setting remain simple. Alistair hadn’t wanted the trappings of royalty to interfere with their ability to get to know one another.

But Alistair had broken his own rule (number five on the list of seven), because the table — Maker, it was set as it was for royal banquets. White tablecloth, specially folded napkins, covered serving dishes, and —

“I requested only two identical spoons for each of us.” Alistair smiled as he sat down, as well. “I didn’t want to worry about embarrassing myself by choosing the wrong one.”

“Embarrassing?” Anora chuckled. “I would only tease you forever in private.”

“Which is the worst of all, hence my precautions.”

Alistair uncovered both plates, each containing a large piece of —

“Cheesecake!” Anora laughed, burying her face in her hands. “Of course!”

Alistair closed his eyes and waved his hands in order to waft the aroma toward his nose. “Oh, cheesecake, how I’ve missed you.”

Anora kicked his leg under the table. “You are ridiculous.”

“You missed this ridiculousness, Your Majesty,” Alistair said, reaching for the bottle sitting in the middle of the table. “And to celebrate this evening, we have brandy, courtesy of our new favorite Arling, West Hills.”

He removed the cork with a deep, satisfying _thup_ and poured them each a glass.

“Now, you do remember what today is, don’t you?”

Anora frowned. It was Tuesday, in Justinian, on — She gasped.

Alistair leaned forward, a mischievous smirk on his face. “Can I assume this means you didn’t get me a present?”

How could she have forgotten their first wedding anniversary?

That grin, the one that made her belly swoop, appeared, and he laughed. “Don’t worry. I forgot until after I sent my last letter. Luckily for me, I think ahead and already had your gift.”

Her stomach sank. Amid the assassination rumors and his absence, the date had completely slipped her mind.

“Alistair.” She took a deep breath. “We never discussed this. But Cailan and I — we didn’t exchange gifts.”

Alistair’s jaw dropped. “Why not?”

Anora spoke to her delicious-looking, still untouched cheesecake. She had never told anyone this, preferring to lie whenever anyone asked. “We tried, at first. Well, I tried. He always forgot, unless there was a party associated with the occasion. So eventually, I just stopped.”

Alistair blinked at her for so long she wondered if he was mocking her. But when he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, she realized he was doing the exact opposite.

“You know.” He spoke through gritted teeth and fiddled with his napkin and glass and two spoons, avoiding her gaze. “I only met Cailan once. He never addressed me directly, and we certainly didn’t discuss … you know. But the more I learn about him, the more I think …”

When he finally looked up at her, she was reminded of the commanding tone he’d used with Leliana at dinner.

“I can’t believe they called _me _the bastard.” He shook his head. “Listen, I never had money growing up. Ever. Which means even when I wanted to get people gifts, I couldn’t, or I had to make them. So you can get me a present or not, I really don’t care. But I just wanted to use some of this obscene amount of wealth to get you something.”

From his pocket, he pulled a square, flat box a little smaller than his hand and placed it between them on the table.

Heart beating faster than seemed appropriate for a simple anniversary gift, she blinked back tears and reached for the box.

He playfully swatted her hand away. “Ah-ah,” he said as she giggled. “After we toast, so I can eat my cheesecake while you open it.”

She rolled her eyes, but with a cheek-aching grin on her face. He raised his glass to her, and she did the same.

“To one year of marriage,” he said. “And to my wife and … well, my best friend.” He frowned and looked away. “I know the past few months have been complicated and difficult, but I want you to know that —” He met her gaze, eyes watery, before clearing his throat. “I can’t say that three months away evaporated everything I felt — feel — for you. But that’s my problem, not yours, and I’d rather —”

Reaching across the table, he laid his free hand atop hers. A surge of warmth raced through her at the contact, and she turned her own hand over to link it with his. They both seemed to squeeze at the same time.

“I care for you, Nor, and I will be more than happy with whatever you can give me in return. I’d rather have my friend than lose you completely. So yes, I’d like to try and go back to the way things were before. That is, if that’s still what you want?”

She swallowed a painful lump in her throat and nodded, but didn’t say anything. Because what her heart pounded to her with every quickened beat, what she was afraid she might accidentally let slip, was the idea that Leliana had suggested to her.

Perhaps Leliana was right, and Anora was … Well. She wasn’t sure what she felt, and until she was, keeping her feelings to herself would be best for both of them. Especially Alistair.

So she nodded, teary-eyed and smiling, as she raised her glass to clink it against Alistair’s.

He smiled at her in return before drinking, a grin so big and bright Anora had to look away, down at her brandy for just a moment.

Her stomach swooped, and she raised her glass to her lips to settle it.

As she met Alistair’s gaze once again, his eyes widened, and he lunged across the table at her.

He swiped at her glass, which hit her in the teeth before slipping through her fingers, spilling down the front of her dress, and crashing to the table

She let out a scream of pain and fear — and anger. How _dare _he —

And then Alistair collapsed onto the table, which tipped and dumped him unceremoniously to the floor.

“Alistair!” Anora screamed, rushing to his side.

His teeth were clenched, his face red, veins in his neck popping like he was straining against something. His body arched up, every muscle tensed.

Then his eyes rolled back in his head and his entire body began to convulse.

A guard burst through the door. “Your Majesties, are you —”

“The king has been poisoned!” she shouted. “Fetch the mage Wynne at once!”

Unable to do anything else but wait and watch in horror as her husband — her best friend — the man she cared about more than anyone else in her life — writhed on the floor, she did the only thing she could.

She spoke to him.

“Alistair, if you can hear me, Wynne is coming,” she said, vision blurring. “I’m right here next to you, and you’re going to be all right. She saved you all those times during the Blight and she’ll do it again.”

There was a commotion at the door, but she didn’t know or care what it was. Alistair’s legs thrashed, and something behind her crashed and broke. Foam lined his lips, which were an eerie blue, and his face — Maker, his face was almost purple.

“She — she will, she has to, Alistair,” Anora cried. “Because I need you to stay with me. Please, please listen to me and don’t — don’t — just don’t leave me!”

Alistair’s convulsions ceased as quickly as they had begun, and he fell limply to the floor. His eyes were open, glazed, unfocused …

“No!” Anora flung herself against his chest and took his face in her hands. “No, Alistair, Wynne is coming, please, please …”

She lifted his head up and rested her forehead against his, which was clammy and feverish.

“Alistair,” she sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Maker, no, please …”

Underneath her, Alistair’s body jerked and he gasped before once again going limp.

Anora looked up to see Wynne, staff extended, rushing towards them. Wynne waved her hand in the air, and Alistair convulsed again. Backing away as Wynne knelt at Alistair’s side murmuring some sort of spell, Anora could see a yellow aura emanating from her staff, surrounding and seeming to seep into Alistair.

Hands grabbed her shoulders, but she shook them off, grasping Alistair’s hand between both of hers.

“Your Majesty,” came an accented voice behind her. Leliana. “Give her space. She can help.”

But Anora would not let Alistair go, not for a moment, not until she knew for certain one way or another.

So she clasped his hand tight and rested their foreheads together once again and, for the first time in Ages, she prayed.


	3. Endgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The endgame phase is the stage of the game when there are few pieces left on the board. 
> 
> Three major strategic aims of the endgame are:
> 
>   * Pawn promotion: Similar to kinging in checkers, **if a pawn reaches the opposite side of the board, it can be “promoted” to any piece type (except for king)**. This is true even if pieces of that type are still on the board, e.g. it is possible for a player to have three bishops or two queens.
>   * Zugzwang, in which a player is forced to incur a disadvantage.
>   * **The king, which requires safeguarding from attack during the middlegame, emerges as a strong piece in the endgame. It is often brought to the center where it can protect its own pawns, attack enemy pawns, and hinder moves of the opponent’s king.******

_Maker, please_, Anora silently prayed, ignoring everything else around her but Alistair’s hand in hers and Alistair’s hair as she combed her fingers through it. _Please let him be all right. Don’t take him from me now._

She realized after a while that the last time she’d prayed had also been for Alistair’s life, the night before he was to battle the archdemon. But that had been a hope for a good man to survive.

Not like now. So much had changed between them in the year since the Battle of Denerim, and now she prayed more fervently than she ever had before for the life of her best friend, her husband, her _Alistair_, who minutes before had joked about cheesecake and remembered their anniversary and presented her with a gift. Who had told her that he cared for her so much that he would rather have her friendship than nothing, even if that meant his heart was broken.

Wynne continued to work on him, wave after wave of yellow healing magic flowing around and into him. His chest rose and fell, so he was breathing, if weakly, and she could feel an erratic pulse through the hand she clasped like a lifeline.

Anora had closed his eyes so that he looked peaceful in sleep. They hadn’t livened like his vitals or his face, which was flush but no longer purple; their haunting, vacant stare frightened her into a near panic. She couldn’t bear the thought that they might never twinkle in laughter again or watch her with an admiration and respect no one else had ever showed her.

His lips had returned to their normal pinkish color, and she used her sleeve to wipe away the foam and saliva — and some blood, she noticed with a shudder — that had gathered on them.

She continued to card her fingers through his hair and, while praying to the Maker in the back of her mind, spoke to him softly.

“Wynne is helping you, and I am right here. If you can hear me, please hold on a bit longer. There are so many people in this world who need you, Alistair, and you cannot leave them yet. The people of Ferelden need their beloved king. Your friends need you to support them and make them smile. And I —” Her voice trembled. “I need my partner. I need you by my side. I can’t do this alone, Alistair, so please, I’m begging you, keep fighting.”

A tear fell onto his forehead, and then another. She was crying again. _Maker, please don’t take him from me._

She continued whispering and praying and holding him until finally, after an eternity, Wynne sat back on her heels with an exhausted sigh.

Anora’s heart jumped into her throat.

“He is stable, for now.”

Anora gasped and flung herself down, placing her hand that still grasped his on his chest, gripping his hair with the other, and placing a gentle kiss upon his forehead.

From behind her came several other gasps of relief.

“Are you all right, Wynne?” Cousland asked.

Turning her head, Anora saw Wynne, pale and sweating, swipe her hand across her forehead.

“I am tired,” Wynne said. “There is more I can do for him, but not —” She swayed and Cousland appeared at her side, supporting her. “Not now. Perhaps the royal healers can take over until I have rested a bit.”

“Of course,” said Anora, and several of the best stepped forward from where they had apparently been watching Wynne work.

“Your Majesty.” Wynne reached out to Anora’s face. “You are bleeding.”

Anora wiped at her nose and mouth and her hand came away bloody as she only now registered pain on her upper lip and gums.

“What happened?” Zevran’s eyes bounced from Anora to Alistair to the table and its wreckage.

“My glass,” said Anora, feeling both internal and external bleeding with her tongue and hand. “He —” Her voice, along with the rest of her, shook uncontrollably now as she looked down at Alistair. “He knew. He — he drank first and, and smacked the glass from my hand before —” A noise somewhere between a sob and a whimper came from her mouth unbidden.

A pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders, and Leliana finished her sentence for her. “Before you could drink. Of course he did.”

Of course he did. Because he was unselfish, as a ruler should be.

A sudden but not unwelcome warmth began to seep into her mouth, and she jerked back, but the pain began to recede until it was gone completely.

Wynne sagged against Cousland.

“Wynne,” he admonished gently. “The healers could have done that. You need to rest.”

“You may use my chambers.” Anora reached her hand out to grasp Wynne’s. “They are just behind us, opposite Alistair’s.”

“Oh, Your Majesty, I couldn’t —”

“I insist.” Anora squeezed her hand. “I will have Shana bring you whatever you need — your clothes, food, any potions you require. And you can stay close in case —”

Maker damn it, her voice trembled into silence again. The people needed to see their Queen strong, not crying and shaking like a leaf.

“But where will you rest?” Wynne asked.

Anora drew herself up the way she’d always been taught, and looked down at Alistair. “I will stay with the king.”

Cousland shot her a look that she didn’t care to decipher.

“Very well,” said Wynne. “He should be moved.” A smirk quirked her lips. “I daresay it’s not very kingly to lay sprawled on the floor, and he will likely complain for days about any backache he might incur.”

“We’ll take care of him, Wynne,” Cousland said softly. “Get some rest.”

“If you would follow me, my lady.” Shana appeared from somewhere. “I will attend to whatever you need.”

“I am not a lady, my dear,” Wynne said with a laugh as Cousland helped her to her feet. “But I thank you. And you, Your Majesty,” she added, bowing her head to Anora.

“It’s you we should all thank,” Anora said. “It seems that he owes you his life yet again.”

Wynne rolled her eyes as she walked away with Shana’s assistance. “The dear boy does have a way of getting himself into trouble.”

Anora rose and addressed the near-crowd in the main room. Maker, so many people had seen her weak and hysterical at a man’s side like some useless damsel. She would need to remedy that.

Steeling her spine and tone, she spoke to the royal healers who had gathered. “Please speak with Wynne before she rests about what the king needs. You will follow her instructions, as she has healed the king many times from battles and knows him best.”

They bowed and followed after Wynne and Shana.

Anora turned to the guards. “The king needs to be moved to his bed. Several of you —”

“I’ve got him,” Cousland said softly behind her. She turned to see him kneeling at Alistair’s side.

“With all due respect, Warden, I do not think you can manage without assistance.”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty,” Cousland said without venom. “Yes, I can.” He raised Alistair into a sitting position, careful to cradle his head with one arm. “Let’s get you to bed, you big self-sacrificing idiot,” he murmured, wrapping Alistair’s limp arm around his shoulder. “You’re lucky she was quick enough to think to get Wynne.” He slid his other arm under Alistair’s knees, and with seemingly little effort, he stood. “When you wake up, I’m going to kill you myself.”

Stunned, Anora had to remind herself that Cousland was a warrior, as well. Though Alistair was tall and stocky, Cousland was nearly a head shorter and built even more sturdily in addition to being trained with heavy two-handed weapons, which was likely what gave him the upper body strength to carry Alistair so easily.

But more than that, it was his gentleness, both in his hold and tone, that surprised her, though she supposed it shouldn’t. Alistair was also a gentle warrior who cared deeply for his friends. If the roles were reversed, she had no doubt Alistair would do the same for Cousland.

Leliana rushed to open the door to Alistair’s chambers.

As loathe as she was to look away, Anora had duties to attend to.

She turned to the rest of the crowd, which thankfully consisted entirely of royal guards. “Captain Harkwold, please search the entire palace from top to bottom for anyone who shouldn’t be here.”

Zevran spoke to her quietly. “The assassin is likely not even in the area.”

“I know that,” she snapped. “But I want the palace searched nonetheless, and any non-essential people should be sent home until further notice. With full wages,” she added, thinking of the kitchen servants who fed them so they could feed their own families. “And I want you personally to see to it that the entire case of brandy from West Hills is tested for poison.”

Captain Harkwold nodded her acquiescence.

“Send for the council at once. Tell them they are all required immediately, but do not let them know what has occurred. I will do so.” She didn’t suspect anyone on the council, but she both wanted to keep the information contained and was interested to see their reactions to the news. Then they would need to discuss what steps to take next. “And this news does not leave this room. We will make an announcement about the king’s state once the council has met. You’re dismissed.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

As she turned back to Alistair’s chambers, she took in the collapsed table and broken dishes. “And Captain, send our most trusted servants to clean this up. Make sure they wear gloves.”

Captain Harkwold nodded again, and the guards filed out, leaving Anora alone in the main room, among the shattered remains of their joyful reunion (and surprise anniversary) dinner.

Except for Zevran, who began to pick through the mess.

She returned to watching in silence through the open door as Cousland and Leliana lay Alistair into his bed, pulling the covers back and fluffing his pillow while still, from what Anora could tell, speaking softly to his unconscious form.

Her vision blurred. Whether or not she liked them, Alistair’s friends quite clearly loved him, and for the first time since they’d arrived, she felt immense gratitude for their presence.

Zevran approached, having retrieved their two glasses, now cracked and broken, and the still intact and corked bottle of West Hills brandy. She resisted the urge to yank it from his hands and smash it against the wall. It was evidence, after all, that could lead them to whoever had done this to Alistair.

She continued to watch Alistair, too pale and limp and quiet and nearly lifeless. Her heart clenched, and she felt utterly helpless, a feeling she was unfamiliar with (at least since the defeat of the archdemon) and utterly despised.

But something flared in her stomach, a heat unlike any she’d felt before.

“You are sure you did not accidentally ingest any?” Zevran asked.

“I’d likely be in the same state if I had,” she said, eyes fixed on Alistair.

“Mm, perhaps,” he said. “It is unclear how large Alistair’s drink was, but I would guess it to be a large mouthful. He was rather nervous about this dinner, especially after Leliana whisked you away.”

She let out a long hiss of air that fell somewhere between a sigh and a growl. If she hadn’t worried him so …

That warmth began to spread from her belly, to the tips of her toes and fingers.

She heard that dull, deep _thup_ again as Zevran uncorked the bottle and smelled it.

“I noticed nothing unusual about the look or smell,” she said, frowning at him. “And neither did Alistair.”

“Yes, but I am quite familiar with poisons, and I detect the tiniest hint of deathroot.” Zevran scoffed. “Amateurs.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Deathroot is easily found and extracted, often used in homes to kill pests. And obvious to anyone even remotely familiar with poisons. A professional assassin would have chosen a completely undetectable and slower-acting poison.”

“Why slower?”

“You knew immediately he had been poisoned, did you not? As did he, since he knocked the glass from your hand.”

She nodded her understanding.

“A smart poisoner would hide the cause. A slow-acting poison might appear as indigestion or a runny nose, for example, before worsening into vomiting or a hacking cough and more lethal symptoms. By then, the victim would not know what caused their illness — food? Drink? A cold? Any other of many diseases being spread daily? Poison would likely be far down on the list of possibilities, if present at all and thus the victim may perish none the wiser to the killer.”

She wondered who might want to kill Alistair — or herself — with enough abandon or stupidity (or both) that they would attempt a poisoning without assistance.

“Of course, it is possible that a poor would-be killer could not afford to hire an assassin and needed to ensure the death of the drinker. We may learn more from testing the other bottles. It is possible that said amateur assassin intended for this bottle to be drunk months or even years later, and Alistair made an unlucky choice.” He considered this for a moment. “Or perhaps a lucky one. Wynne was here to assist him, after all, as were you. Then again,” he added, tilting his head, “perhaps the amateur was so poor they could only afford to poison one bottle. Or was so amateur they did not consider poisoning more than one. Perhaps they only had access to one, or time to poison only one, or did not think that far ahead. There are many possibilities.”

He spoke as if this were all obvious and a perfectly normal topic for one to be knowledgeable about.

Anora let her gaze drift back to Alistair. Cousland was nearly finished changing Alistair from the remnants of his formal clothes to a plain tunic and trousers. Leliana had found extra pillows and blankets from somewhere — did Alistair hoard them? — and was now sitting at the bedside, speaking and gesturing wildly, seeming to be telling Alistair one of her tales.

Maker, Alistair had such odd friends. A noble warrior and slayer of the archdemon, an Orlesian bard and Chantry sister, a well-respected Senior Enchanter who survived Ostagar and excelled in healing magic, and a former assassin.

Leliana moved, and Anora watched as Cousland lay Alistair down for the final time. Alistair’s head lolled, and Anora saw his face — he seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

The longer she watched him, the faster her insides burned.

“This is yours, no?” Zevran handed her the square black box that held Alistair’s anniversary gift.

She took it with shaking hands, and the furious heat in her stomach made her nauseous. “No,” she said, and her voice shook, too. She handed it back to him. “Not yet. He wants to watch me open it.”

And he _would_, she decided. Her gaze drifted to Alistair once again.

As the heat inside her rose through her chest, neck, and up to her head, she asked Zevran, “You were formerly a Crow, yes?”

Zevran hummed. “I do not know what Alistair told you —”

“He told me you were formerly a Crow.”

“Ah. Then yes, I was formerly a Crow. Though one does not truly leave the Crows behind, nor the knowledge and experience gained from them.” He paused, then asked, more quietly, “Do you have need of my services, Your Majesty?”

Leliana had finished her story, and Cousland pressed a hand to Alistair’s shoulder, closing his eyes for a moment.

The heat burned hotter until it burst to life around her clenched heart.

Rage.

“Find them.” Her voice no longer shook; in fact, it was ice.

Zevran was silent for a moment. “And when I do?”

She was pleased to hear his confidence. _When_, not _if_. The Antivan Crows were not infamous for nothing.

“Bring them to me. Alive.”

Zevran nodded in apparent understanding. “You will put them on trial, of course.”

Though internally Anora’s rage burned brighter than the sun, externally everything about her was calm, calculating, and cold.

“I will make an example of them.”

She wasn’t helpless. She was the queen. The most powerful piece on the board. She excelled at most aspects of ruling, but she only cared about one right now.

Protect the king.

* * *

Zevran had been correct about one thing — the timing of Alistair’s poisoning had been, as terrible as it sounded, lucky.

His friends might be odd, but they knew how to find people and how to fight.

She’d appointed them all to the council as temporary, honorary members. Her council was made up of the best Ferelden had to offer, but they did not have the specific applicable expertise of a former Antivan Crow and an Orlesian-trained bard. They worked with Captain Harkwold and the council spymaster respectively, approaching the investigation from both sides.

Everyone worked through the night and well into the following day. Wynne brought them occasional updates on Alistair’s condition — improving, but slowly, and thus not out of the woods quite yet — while the divergent branches of the investigation gathered evidence, and Anora worked with the scribes to draft an announcement to the people, properly balanced between seriousness of the poisoning, dedication to finding the assassins, and hope for the king’s inevitable and swift recovery.

As for the Hero of Ferelden, he, too, assisted where he could, using his connections to help track down information and even leaving the palace once or twice to speak with some of what he called his “contacts.”

By lunchtime, Anora was dead on her feet but determined to continue, and it wasn’t until she swayed on her feet that Leliana linked their arms as before and announced, “Your Majesty, you must rest. The king would be saddened to think you were putting your health at risk on his behalf.”

Unfortunately, she was right on both counts, and the council agreed, refusing to continue work until she left to rest.

Leliana led her back to the royal chambers and into her own rooms, currently vacant of Wynne.

Anora protested. “I wish to see Alistair.”

“Of course,” said Leliana. “But you must change from this dress.” She motioned to Shana. “It still bears the stain of the poisoned brandy.”

“I do not care,” Anora said, attempting to leave, but Leliana blocked her way.

“Anora,” Leliana said, her voice dark and retreating from her constant formality, and that was how Anora knew she had lost. “You cannot be comfortable, and what if this stain is causing you harm?”

“May I, Your Majesty?” Shana asked.

Anora consented, for she had no other choice. And she would prefer to be in a nightgown, if she were to be banished to her chambers indefinitely.

“Shana,” Leliana said, as if she were in charge of the woman. “Would you please do what you can to remove the stain? I believe this is a favorite of both the queen and king.”

Anora stared at the likely ruined dress, eyes stinging with tears. “He told me I look ‘absolutely enchanting’ in blue.”

“Of course he did.” Leliana linked their arms again and led them out toward Alistair’s chambers. “Contrary to what most people think, Alistair is an intelligent man with impeccable taste.”

The door to Alistair’s room was closed, and Leliana knocked. “Wynne? May Her Majesty see him?”

Wynne opened the door after a moment and gave Anora a genuine, if exhausted, smile. “Of course. I believe he would appreciate company other than myself and other healers who continually poke and prod at him.”

She motioned for Anora to sit in a chair that she had clearly been occupying.

In spite of her right and expectation as queen and wife to sit next to Alistair, Anora hesitated.

“If you must be close to him in case something happens …” The last thing she wanted was to be in the way if he took a turn for the worse and seconds mattered between life and death.

“He is stable for now,” Wynne said, and Leliana practically shoved Anora into the chair. “I could use a break to eat.”

“And I should get back to work,” said Leliana, suspiciously cheerful.

As they left, Wynne said, “Send someone for me if anything changes.”

And the door clicked closed behind them.

Anora took a deep breath and turned to regard Alistair. Much of his color had returned, and his chest rose and fell in a regular, gentle rhythm. But he was otherwise unnaturally still — Alistair was always fidgeting or pacing or moving in some way, even in sleep — and his hands lay folded across his abdomen as though he lay on his pyre.

The image made Anora sick.

She leaned in to brush her hand across his cheek, which was warm and thankfully not clammy.

And before she realized what she was doing, she was pulling back the blankets and lying beside him. She adjusted his arm closest to her so that it lay at his side, where she twined their fingers together. Then she wrapped her other arm across his chest. She curled up against him and lay her head on his shoulder.

He smelled like himself, and she sent a silent prayer to the Maker.

It wasn’t long before his steady heartbeat (thank the Maker) and soothing breaths (_thank the Maker and Andraste_) lulled her to sleep.

* * *

Anora woke to the sound of the door opening. She groggily looked over her shoulder.

She shot straight up, wide awake, when she saw who had entered.

“Shit!” Domnall Cousland said, avoided her gaze and looking everywhere but at her.

“Maker’s breath, Cousland,” she snapped, running her hand along her hair to make sure it wasn’t sticking up at odd angles. “I was sleeping. You didn’t interrupt us or see me without clothes.”

“I — I’m sorry, I didn’t realize —” He cleared his throat started again, meeting her eyes this time. “They told me you were resting. I thought you’d be in your rooms.”

“That was the original plan, but …” It was her turn to look away, toward Alistair, who didn’t seem to have changed at all. Still too silent, still too unmoving, still too unconscious. “What time is it?”

“After seven in the evening.” She turned to him, but he answered before she could even ask. “Nothing new. Still following the trail.”

He paused, and just as he opened his mouth, she answered. “No change.” She gripped Alistair’s hand and brought it to her mouth, pressing her lips against the back before lowering it into her lap. “I don’t like this,” she murmured. “He’s too —”

“Quiet and still?” Cousland asked. “He doesn’t even sleep this soundly, so he doesn’t look peaceful, he looks —”

“Yes,” she whispered.

She had to remind herself that although she was married to him, Cousland and the others had traveled with Alistair for about the same length of time as their marriage. He knew Alistair as well as, or perhaps even better than, she did.

Instead of annoying or upsetting her, the thought was a comforting one. Cousland was clearly worried enough that he had come to sit at Alistair’s bedside when he believed Alistair was alone. She wondered if Alistair was his closest friend as he was hers.

“I’ll let you get back to your rest, then.” Cousland moved to retreat.

“No.”

Cousland froze and turned to gape at her.

To be fair, she was doing the same thing to herself in her mind.

“I meant that I think you should stay. He would appreciate that.”

“I don’t want to intrude —”

Anora, thankful she was wearing her least revealing nightgown, slid out of bed. She quickly found one of Alistair’s robes (lying in a heap on the floor, of course) and put it on. “You’re not. I am not the only one who cares for him, and I doubt he would argue about too many people at his bedside.”

The high likelihood that Alistair had never woken up from an injury to people waiting and worrying for him at his bedside turned her stomach sour.

Cousland didn’t argue with her, and for perhaps the first time in history, the great Hero of Ferelden did as she had requested, sitting in a chair next to the one she had previously occupied.

She fastidiously tucked and smoothed the blankets around Alistair once again, brushing her fingers through his hair and even kissing him on the forehead before she retreated to her own chair, his hand clasped in hers.

They sat for several minutes in silence, both on the same side of the bed, chairs less than a foot from each other. Anora rubbed the back of Alistair’s hand with her thumb — something he always did for her after her nightmares and which she found incredibly soothing — while she felt Cousland’s gaze flick quickly between her and Alistair.

Then they both spoke at the same time.

“Thank you for —” she started.

“He was right about —” Cousland began.

They both stopped.

“You first, Your Majesty.” Cousland bowed his head.

Unsure if he was mocking her or not, she gritted her teeth, but said what she’d intended. “Thank you for what you’ve been doing for him. For helping to find who did this, and sitting with him, and carrying him in here.

“Of course,” he murmured. “He’s my friend.”

“And for —” She looked down at her hand, which still held Alistair’s. “Accompanying him and supporting him on his trip these past few months.”

He shook his head. “That one I won’t accept. Because now it’s my turn.” He took a breath, as if gathering strength, and said, “He was right about you. I don’t know if I misjudged you or if you’ve actually changed since the Landsmeet, but … I’ve been unfair to you. Because I wasn’t supporting him on our trip. I should never have sent you that letter. When he found out, he was angry, and he had every right to be.”

When he covered his face with a hand, she heard a surreptitious sniff. Then he rested his elbows on his knees and lowered his hand to cover only his mouth, revealing red, puffy eyes.

“I was just trying to help because he was hurting, and it was my fault. _I_ was the one who proposed that you two marry. _I_ made him king, even though he only ever wanted to be a Grey Warden and he’s such a romantic that he was waiting until he found the right woman to —” To Anora’s immense surprise, he let out a sob, burying his face fully in his hands. “And his life has been so awful and I made it so much worse because I was trying to do what was best for Ferelden but all the choices were shitty and everyone seemed to have an agenda and I was always bad at politics because that was Fergus’s thing, but I thought he was dead just like everyone else and I —”

Anora released Alistair and turned to place a hand on Cousland’s shoulder.

How had she not noticed that this second son of a teyrn, this _boy_, had been thrust into a position he neither wanted nor expected and forced to decide the fates of elves and dwarfs and Circle mages and Fereldan nobles and an entire _nation_? So young, without any preparation and after so many tragedies in his life — the only reason he’d become a Warden in the first place was the slaughter of his entire family, and then the battle at Ostagar, and all the gruesome things he must have seen and been a party to. At least she’d been preparing most of her life for the role of queen.

But she’d been so distracted by her own concerns and griefs and prejudices against him that she hadn’t been fair at all.

“Stop,” she said, soft but firm. He flinched at her touch and gasped in a choking sob, but she did not remove her hand. “Do not blame yourself for things beyond your control. As much as I know you despise it, we all call you the Hero of Ferelden for a reason — because you led when others wouldn’t or couldn’t, and you made decisions no one else wanted to make. You did the best you could with the information you had, and you should not let your doubts cloud that.”

He shook his head, but she tugged his hands from his face and met his red, watery eyes.

“If nothing else, I can assure you of a few things,” she said. “First, that Alistair loves you like a brother and does not blame you for making him king. He agreed to do so, just as he did to marry me. You made good arguments, and he was convinced to give up what he wanted for the good of Ferelden. Do not take away his agency and selflessness by assuming such blame.”

Cousland swallowed, but said nothing.

“Second, I realized early on that your choice of monarchs _was_ the best for Ferelden. Alistair and I complement each other, and our skills and experiences provide a balance that has not existed on the throne in many years. I have experience with politics and nobility, while he knows and is loved by the people, and his empathy is …” She looked back at Alistair, still unconscious at an assassin’s hand. “One of the things I admire most about him. It makes him a good king, and we are partners.”

When she looked back, Cousland was also watching Alistair. His gaze returned and after a moment’s pause, they both backed away, Anora removing her hands and Cousland pulling back as far as he could in his chair.

She cleared her throat, grasped Alistair’s hand again, and spoke once more. “As to his happiness, I, too, worry about it. But he seemed to enjoy his time with you, and also seemed happy to return. He is so poor at hiding his emotions, I believe we would know if he were truly miserable.”

Cousland snorted at that, and they shared a smirk.

“Leliana was right, too,” he said after a time.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Do not strain yourself, Warden. Perhaps reduce these admittances to once per day, lest you do grievous harm to your ego.”

Cousland laughed out loud at that. “Have you always been funny like this, or is it a learned behavior?” He nodded his head toward Alistair.

She squeezed Alistair’s hand and hummed. “Perhaps a combination of the two. Or perhaps …” She considered how fun and happy her life had become since Alistair entered it. “Perhaps I was never allowed, and he showed me it was all right.”

“That I can understand. He has a way of breaking down walls and charming his way in. Except for a select prejudiced few, people usually find it difficult not to love him.”

She nodded. That was how he’d won her over, at any rate.

“Which is what Leliana was right about,” Cousland said. “The more I watch you around him … You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Anora bowed her head and closed her eyes. “I do not know. I have never been in love before.”

“Neither has he,” Cousland said gently, and then he frowned. “You didn’t love Cailan?”

Anora looked at Alistair, still pale and far quieter than he should ever be, and noted the similarities between his features and Cailan’s.

But that was where the comparison started and stopped. Cailan could never hold a candle to Alistair as a person, as a man, and even as a king.

“Cailan and I loved each other. But we were never in love with each other.”

Cousland nodded as if he could possibly understand. “I’m no expert, but I know a little bit about being in love.” His tone grew sad at the end, and Anora wondered who he’d lost. But he smiled and leaned toward her just a little muttering, “It’s one of those things that you know when you see. And you absolutely light up when he smiles at you. In an exact reflection of how he lights up when you smile, and you feed off of each other in a frankly disgusting display of adorableness.”

She felt her cheeks heat, but couldn’t help a small smile at the idea.

“And if that’s not enough,” said Cousland, returning to his previous position. “You’ve got Leliana, Zev, Wynne, and now me convinced, and word around the palace seems to say the same.”

“Nevertheless.” She sighed. “Until I know for certain, I would not raise his hopes only to dash them again, more painfully this time.”

“That’s what makes me think it’s true. Well, that and the way you reacted when …” Cousland’s voice gave out. “You saved his life, you know. If you hadn’t called for Wynne when you did, she would have been too late. She nearly was.”

“Fitting, as he saved my life first.”

“Yeah, he’s a bit of an asshole like that.”

Anora laughed, and her initial thought was that she would need to tell that one to Alistair. He would sputter and turn red and then grin sheepishly with a shrug.

If — no. _When_ he awoke.

“I owe you an apology,” Cousland said, almost too softly to hear.

“As I said, do not blame yourself for —”

“Not for that.”

She looked at him sharply.

“I know why we have never been friendly, even with Alistair loving us both as he does.” He dropped his gaze briefly before seeming to drag it up to meet hers. “If there is one thing I regret from the Landsmeet, it was the execution.”

A sharp pain shot through her chest at the mention of Father, and her vision blurred. Maker, she was so weak.

“I was distracted by his crimes and the casualties he caused. Angry and hurt at the things he allowed and directed to happen.” Cousland shook his head. “But I know what it is to watch family die in front of you and be helpless to stop it.” His voice gave out for just a moment, but he continued. “I should have imprisoned him, or Maker, recruited him to the Wardens so we’d have extra help. Or, at the very least, allowed you to remove yourself and not be a witness. I am more sorry for that than I can say.”

She cried then, letting the tears roll all the way down her cheeks to drip onto her lap. A pressure in her chest, so much a part of her that she hadn’t known she carried it, suddenly released, and she felt as though she could take a deep breath for the first time in Ages.

When her tears stopped, she wiped her cheeks and eyes. “Thank you,” she said thickly. “I know he was guilty and deserved to be punished, but … thank you.”

“He told me you have nightmares about it.”

Anora inhaled sharply. “He should not have.”

“He mentioned it as an explanation for why he fell in love with you. He admires your courage and commitment to Ferelden in spite of everything.”

Oh. Of all the reasons she’d imagined in the past three months as she tried to understand just why Alistair would love _her_, that was nowhere on the list. She was not a warrior, as he was, and had thus never considered herself courageous.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Likewise, Your Majesty.”

“Anora,” she said. “Alistair’s friends should not stand on ceremony with me.”

He nodded. “In that case, Anora, let’s dispense with all formalities, as I despise them. Call me Dom.”

They exchanged a smile and fell into silence once again.

* * *

Just after lunch the next afternoon, Zevran burst into Alistair’s room, startling both Anora and Dom as they played chess — which they had both learned from their fathers — at Alistair’s bedside.

“We’ve got the bastard,” Zev announced, Leliana and Wynne trailing behind him.

“Hey!” Dom snapped. “Watch it. Alistair resembles that remark.”

Anora covered her snort with her hand, and everyone else chuckled.

Except Wynne. “Dom,” she chastised.

Anora liked the woman, but she sure did frown disapprovingly at a lot of things. Perhaps it was the stress.

“Please,” Dom said. “He’d be the first to make that joke if he was awake.”

Five pairs of eyes shifted to Alistair, whose condition hadn’t changed since the previous night. Anora squeezed his hand again, which she’d been holding since she awoke. Chess only required one usable arm.

“Is he in custody, or —?”

“Captain Harkwold has just recorded his confession,” Leliana said. “She is still speaking with him in one of the holding cells downstairs.”

Anora stood, kissed Alistair’s hand, and lowered his arm gently to the bed. Then she kissed him on the forehead, brushing her fingers through his hair, which gave her the strength to gather herself up once again.

She was Queen, and that previous icy hot rage filled her as she turned to fulfill her duty.

“Lead the way.”

The king was not out of danger yet, but it was time for the strongest piece to make her move.

* * *

Anora had heard the report. She knew the facts and the motives and the names involved.

But she wanted a face to confront and blame.

So she entered the room with only Zevran for protection.

Not that she needed it. She wouldn’t be eating or drinking anything in here, would not be touching the would-be assassin, and as for other weapons, well — she had begun to carry Alistair’s two daggers on her person since Dom had removed them with his clothes.

She sat in the small, unassuming chair as if it were her throne and the man across from her a foreign leader. Folding her hands, she regarded him neutrally.

Then she introduced herself.

“I am Anora Mac Tir Theirin, Queen of Ferelden.”

“Yes, Majesty,” the man muttered, head bowed.

“What is your name?” she asked, as though he were a normal subject who had come to her for aid.

“Amos Morrow of Dragonmount, Majesty.”

“I’ve been told, Amos Morrow of Dragonmount, that you have confessed to poisoning the king. Is this true?”

He nodded, head so bowed that it hung parallel to the table.

“Very well. I know you have already done so, as Captain Harkwold has shown me your confession, but I would like to hear your story from you.”

At that, Amos Morrow lifted his head just enough to glance at her. He seemed surprised, but not unpleasantly so.

“He has eaten, yes?” she asked Zevran.

“Food was offered, but he did not eat it.”

“Amos,” she said, leaning forward. “I swear to you on the king’s life and my own that the food we offer is just that. Any punishment you receive will not be doled out by poison.”

Another glance, and a furrowed brow.

“Would you at least like some water before you tell your story?”

Amos nodded. The door opened a minute later, and Anora rose to fetch a glass of water and offer it to Amos.

He drained it.

Then he began his story.

He worked in Bann Irwin’s household. Nearly two months ago, the Bann returned from Denerim in a rage, displeased with the Queen’s ruling in favor of the elven freeholder who had accused him of taxing her five times higher than the other (non-elven) freeholders under his protection.

Anora remembered that complaint, which she had ruled on prior to postponing until Alistair’s return. Irwin had barely attempted to hide his blatant racism _and_ sexism, claiming something about an elven woman needing more protection due to being both an elf and a woman as justification. The decision had been so easy and obvious that she hadn’t even wondered at Alistair’s opinion. Now, she wondered if her former self, the one who had held court with Cailan, would have done the same. She wanted to believe so, particularly due to the freeholder being a woman, but the plight of the elves had (shamefully) never concerned her before she married Alistair, whose first official stance as king was to better support elves living in Ferelden.

Irwin had apparently believed that, in the king’s absence, Anora would rule in his favor. So enraged was he at the perceived unfairness of it all that he lazily and cheaply ordered Amos, his gardener, to extract a toxin from one of his plants and poison a bottle of West Hills brandy, as Anora was known to favor it. The king, Irwin assured him, was a bastard commoner and likely preferred ale or some inferior spirit to the best brandy in Ferelden. Truly, the man’s idiocy and prejudice knew no bounds.

Amos was ordered to poison the bottle under the threat of losing his position, and the potency was to be tested on an animal. As Amos had several children with one on the way, he did as ordered, while Irwin insisted on testing the brandy on the rabbit Amos’s children had adopted as a pet.

The single bottle of brandy was presented to Alistair when he visited Dragonmount, and for ease of transport, it was packed with the case gifted by West Hills.

Amos was in tears by the end of his story, begging Anora for his life, or at least for some way to provide for his family in his absence.

Anora placed her hands on top of his shackled ones. “Your circumstances are unique, Amos. When the king wakes, I believe he will want to speak with you, as well. I can promise nothing more.”

But she had a strong feeling Alistair would agree with her.

* * *

Irwin, on the other hand, denied everything. Captain Harkwold had left with a squad as soon as Amos finished confessing, so Anora spoke with him only a few hours later.

Amazing, how efficient the Council and Royal Guard could be when the king’s life was at stake.

In addition to failing to provide any sort of plausible explanation or denial, Irwin couldn’t hide his scorn that Anora sat in front of him. He damningly expressed his surprise that the king had such a refined palate while still attempting to deny any knowledge of a poisoned bottle of brandy.

Anora smiled her most shrewish smile — cold and emotionless, except for the smug arrogance at having caught the bastard.

“You should be thanking the king,” she said, calm as ever. “Had he not knocked the glass from my hand, both monarchs would be dead, and you would not have made it here. The king is a hero of the Blight, after all, and knows many different sorts of people, including an Antivan Crow. And let me tell you.” She lowered her voice, leaning in. “The Crows are efficient assassins, when they wish. When they don’t, well.” She tilted her head. “They can be quite _in_efficient in their methods, if you take my meaning.”

She stood and walked to the door, smirking at the sight of Zevran, who had been behind her wearing a rather terrifying smile.

“The king is a good, kind man,” Anora said at the door. “Pray he wakes. Because if he doesn’t …” She paused for a good, long while. (She would need to ask Leliana if she would have made a good bard.) ”I am not nearly so merciful.”

* * *

With nothing keeping her away now, Anora spent every moment at Alistair’s bedside. She took her dinner there, read to him there, talked and laughed with Alistair’s friends there. They, too, were no longer required, and all surrendered with relief their Council positions.

“I am not even Fereldan, dear Anora. What a scandal!” Zevran declared.

Leliana, as it turned out, considered herself Fereldan in spite of being born in Orlais because her mother was Fereldan. And upon hearing Anora tell the story about the giant in West Hills, she agreed that Anora would have made a fine bard. Anora flushed, unsure if she had ever been so pleased by a compliment before.

Leliana also informed her, with that knowing smirk, that Shana had succeeded in cleaning her blue and silver dress. “How wonderful she could save it! Now it will be ready for whenever Alistair wakes!” Anora hoped, for the sake of the Divine, that the woman could be more subtle when required.

And, when night fell, Anora climbed into bed and spent the night by Alistair’s side. Though a small denseness in the pit of her stomach served as a constant reminder that Alistair was not yet recovered and of her worry that he might never be, she fell asleep rather quickly to the warm, soothing rhythm of his heart.

She awoke to someone shaking her less than gently, a tense and almost distraught but Maker-blessed voice in her ear.

“Maker, no.” The voice wavered dangerously. “Wake up, Nor, please …”

“Alistair?” she asked groggily. In the semi-darkness of the bedroom, she saw his deeply furrowed brow. Then the reality of what she was seeing hit her, and she sat up straight, grasping his face in her hands. “Alistair! Thank the Maker!”

He shot up, too, though he grunted in pain as he did before throwing his arms around her and burying his face in her neck. “Maker’s breath, I thought you were —” His voice gave out.

“What?” As tightly as he was holding her, she could hardly breathe. “Alistair, let me light a candle!”

He released her just enough to allow her to twist and reach for a candle and match.

The small flame seemed to light up the room, and there he was, exhausted and pale, but conscious. Alive. _Speaking and moving._

This time, he reached up to take her face in his hands. “You’re all right?”

They were oh, so close to each other, foreheads pressed together, breathing in the warm air the other breathed out, and vice versa. All she had to do was lean in a few inches and their lips would meet.

Her stomach fluttered, and for the first time, she wanted to.

Later, perhaps. But not now.

“Am _I_ all right?” she asked, returning the candle to the bedside table. “You were the one who was poisoned!”

“I know,” he said, as though this were no concern at all. “But you were drinking, too.”

His eyes roamed her face, up and down and back again, still cradling her face in his hands, gentle and careful like she was a fragile Tevinter doll.

He was distressed, heart pounding, breathing hard, which was likely not good for him. She had to set him at ease.

Reaching up to take cover his hands with hers, she shook her head. “You knocked it away before I could.”

He raised his eyes to the heavens and let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank the Maker. You were laying there with your eyes closed, and I thought …”

She could hardly believe this, this, this _idiot_, who had woken up after days on death’s door and worrying an entire kingdom, and he panicked because he saw her asleep and thought she had been poisoned.

“I am all right.” She squeezed his hands, still cradling his. “You were the one who nearly died! You’ve been unconscious for two and a half days!”

Alistair slumped, his hands grew heavy, and he fell back into his pillows. She didn’t release his hands, keeping hold until they came to rest on his belly. “Well, that explains why I feel like an ogre picked me up and smashed me into the ground several dozen times.”

At that, the door slammed open, and Dom marched in, followed by Leliana, Zevran, and Wynne, who rushed to Alistair’s side already murmuring spells.

“You big, self-sacrificing _idiot_!” Dom jabbed his finger in Alistair’s direction.

Alistair scoffed while Wynne’s hands, which hovered a few inches above his body, moved all over.

“Rude, considering I almost died,” Alistair said, and he had the gall to actually sound annoyed.

Anora scrambled out of bed and stood in front of Dom, placating hands out. “Dom, calm down.”

“You are so Maker-damned lucky,” Dom continued over her shoulder, “that Anora was quick enough to call for Wynne immediately. A few minutes longer and you’d be the late King Alistair Theirin, _asshole_ who puts others before himself.”

Anora tilted her head, exchanging confused glances with Leliana and Zevran.

She turned around to see Alistair pinching the bridge of his nose before rolling his head toward Wynne. “Did I suffer brain damage? Because he’s not making any sense.”

Finally satisfied, Wynne lowered her arms. “He was worried about you, as were we all. You gave us quite a scare, young man.”

“I’ve almost died plenty of times,” Alistair said. “Why am I getting lectured now?”

“You didn’t ‘almost’ die,” said Wynne, now feeling Alistair’s forehead. “You did.”

Anora’s heart leapt into her throat. She’d wondered, afterward, if his still body and empty eyes had meant what she’d feared.

Alistair frowned deeply. “What?”

“Your heart stopped beating,” Wynne explained, tone gentle. “You stopped breathing. Only for a few moments, perhaps thirty seconds at most, but you were dead, and it took everything I had to bring you back and keep you here. Even with constant supervision and continual healing, you were unconscious for two days.” She paused as that seemed to sink in. “As I said, we were all worried. You gave us quite a scare.”

Alistair gaped at her, then looked at the rest of them. “Oh.” His voice was smaller than she’d ever heard it. He turned to stare at the ceiling, swallowed, closed his eyes tightly, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Stop this at once,” Anora commanded, and every head turned to look at her sharply. “All of you. This is no one’s fault but the man who did it.”

And if it was anyone else’s fault, it was hers, because the man had intended the poison for her.

“Or woman,” Alistair muttered. “Women can kill people, too.”

Everyone rolled their eyes, but with varying degrees of humor.

Except for Anora. She pressed her lips together in a failed attempt not to smile.

Alistair nodded behind her. “Just ask Princess Stabbity back there.”

Leliana tsked.

He smirked at his own joke, but she could tell he was still shaken. Wynne should have waited to tell him that at least until he’d left the bed.

She sat on the bed and stroked his cheek with her thumb, which he leaned into with a soft hum, eyes fluttering closed.

“I appreciate your open-mindedness,” she said, “but you should know me well enough by now to know that I wouldn’t have said ‘man’ unless I knew it was correct.”

His eyes snapped open. “You know who it was?”

Anora nodded. “Since yesterday afternoon.”

Alistair sat up, once again too quickly for his body’s condition, and winced. “You found them in less than three days?” He chuckled. “We should give the Council, the Guard, and everyone else involved a serious raise.”

“Do we get a raise?” Dom asked. “We helped, too.”

Ignoring Dom, Anora smiled fondly at Alistair, shaking her head. “You always want to give people a raise.”

“People can always use more money, Nor.” He repeated his now-familiar protest as he always did when they spoke of wages.

She caressed down his face, ending with her hand on his shoulder. “I know.”

He tilted his head at her, a slight frown creasing his brow. Possibly at her sudden, rather intimate contact in front of people. She probably shouldn’t, especially in front of his friends, but she couldn’t stop herself. She’d almost lost him, and here he was, talking and joking and moving and _alive_, and she needed to touch him to believe it was real.

So instead of removing her hand, she just smiled.

His gaze roamed her face, lingering more than once on her lips. But because he was never one to take advantage, he only rested his hand on hers and asked, “You’re sure you’re okay? You didn’t drink anything, or …”

Still smiling, she shook her head. “No. I’m just —” Her vision blurred, and she hated herself for it. “I was worried, like Wynne said.”

He nodded, and, seeming to remember everyone else in the room, pulled back slightly. Taking a deep breath, he rubbed his chin (with its several days’ beard growth) and said, “So you found him. I assume you, ah, made an example of him?”

“I didn’t, actually.”

Alistair exaggeratedly pulled back, as if he were blown back by an imaginary force, and blinked several times. “What? Are you feeling okay?” He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, which she smacked away with a roll of her eyes. “Where’s the fierce Queen Anora who was already sharpening the axe to make an example of _potential_ assassins?”

Behind her, Zevran let out a chuckle, which always, regardless of the matter at hand, managed to sound sultry and seductive.

“Oh, she was fierce, my friend. Beautiful, seductive, and terrifying as a Crow.”

“As a what?”

“A Crow, Alistair, a Crow. You know, the infamous group of Antivan assassins of which I used to be a member? Try to keep up.”

“Hey,” Alistair said, waving his hand up and down at himself. “Actually died for a bit? Give me a break.”

“Well, Anora,” Dom said with a sigh, resting a hand on her shoulders. “He’ll be using that excuse for years. I apologize in advance.”

“Guys,” Alistair snapped. “Can we shut it for a minute with the making fun and let me know why this assassin tried to kill me?”

“Not you,” Dom said, sober in an instant. He nodded to Anora.

Alistair’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “So the rumors were right.”

“Surprisingly, no,” said Leliana. “In the story of your reign, you could say they were a … red herring, of sorts.”

Alistair looked to Anora, who shrugged. “There are always rumors of assassins.”

“So who did this, and why?”

Anora took a breath, paused, then smirked. “You’re going to laugh.”

“About someone trying to kill you?” Alistair asked, voice tight. “Unlikely.”

“It was Bann Irwin of Dragonmount. He was upset because I ruled against him two months ago. Before I decided to postpone all judgments until your return.”

Alistair let out a mirthless, single-syllable chuckle. “Funny? No. But definitely ironic.”

“Why?” Wynne asked.

“That’s … between Anora and me,” Alistair said, glancing briefly at Anora before returning to Wynne.

He was keeping her confidence, refusing to tell them of the desperate letter she’d written him in the wee hours, concerned that she was failing in her duty as queen.

Had he always kept the contents secret? She’d assumed, from Dom’s letter, that he shared everything with them. But perhaps she hadn’t given him enough credit, and Dom had only made his own assumptions.

Sweet, kind, and so very Alistair. But unnecessary.

“A month into Alistair’s absence,” she explained, “I decided to cease holding court until he returned. I grew concerned, based on a particular interaction, that I was favoring nobles too much, and that everyone knew and even expected it. I wrote to Alistair about it. We balance each other, and I didn’t want to cause harm due to my own prejudices.”

“That is ironic,” Dom said. “And typical. This is why I hate politics. I’m sorry that you were right and still punished for it.”

“Okay, hold up one second.” Alistair did, in fact, hold up both hands in a _stop_ gesture. “Are we sure I’m not suffering brain damage? Because in the past ten minutes these two haven’t snapped at each other once and are actually addressing each other by name and not title.”

“Can we ever truly be sure you haven’t suffered brain damage?” Dom asked, and the others laughed, and even Alistair smirked along with a tolerant eye roll. “No, but …” Dom looked at Anora. “We had a talk, and I think we came to an understanding.”

“Huh.” Alistair looked back and forth between them. “You’re welcome, then, for dying and being unconscious for days.”

“That’s not funny,” Anora and Dom said at the same time.

Alistair jerked back, surprise and concern on his face. “Okay. Sheesh. If I can’t joke about dying, what can I joke about?”

“Literally anything else,” Dom said, tone tight as a drum.

Alistair shrugged and returned his attention to Anora. “So if you didn’t make an example of him, did you execute Irwin quietly?”

“The situation is a bit more complicated than that,” said Anora.

By the time they finished explaining the circumstances, Alistair had hauled himself out of bed, clumsily dressed himself, and absolutely insisted on, against everyone’s objections, “dealing with this now.”

* * *

“You’re kidding, right?”

Alistair sat, in his crown and what he called his “special fancy king outfit,” on his throne in front of the court. He looked a bit pale and tired, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

Anora watched him, similarly dressed, from her throne beside him.

Alistair leaned forward and addressed the former Bann Irwin. “Are you playing the part of some villain in an Orlesian opera? Because everything about you and this entire situation is almost comically evil. Even the archdemon would say you’re a bit much. The only thing you’re missing is the laugh. Are you about to ‘mwua-ha-ha-ha-ha’?” His voice deepened on the last bit as he demonstrated.

The entire court laughed.

Anora simply squeezed Alistair’s hand. She had taken it prior to their entrance, primarily to ensure he could make the walk to the throne. He did, though barely, if his pallor and the way he clutched her were any indication.

Once they’d begun, neither had let go.

He squeezed back, but didn’t take his gaze from Irwin.

Once Alistair had spoken to both Irwin and Amos Morrow, they’d discussed the decision together. As she’d suspected, Alistair had agreed with her that Amos should not be punished and should, in fact, be compensated by Irwin for his suffering.

As for Irwin, Alistair had surprised her in his vehemence, but she did not argue, as she was in agreement. And they’d decided, for the sake of making an example, that Alistair should render the judgment.

She was here to support her partner.

Alistair watched Irwin, who glared at him with unconcealed disdain. The sheer, unmitigated gall of the man.

“You know,” Alistair said, and the smirk he wore was mirthless and cynical, so very unlike the smile she loved so much. “I could forgive you trying to kill me, and even for almost succeeding. Lots of people have tried to kill me. I try not to take it personally.”

Once again, the court laughed, but Anora flashed a small frown before she remembered herself. Something about the way he was speaking made her uncomfortable.

“But you were attempting to kill the queen,” he said, and she finally recognized his tone. She placed her free hand atop their joined ones. “And that …”

He looked away, and the chuckle he gave was also mirthless. His tongue pressed into his cheek, forming a visible bump, as if he were biting on it to keep it under control.

He grimaced, and Anora realized that he was trying, with incredible difficulty, to keep from saying what he apparently wanted very much to say.

But, try as he might, he lost that battle with himself.

“That _really_ … pisses me off.”

Gasps. Anora’s chief among them. They had discussed the judgment, but not his official pronouncement.

He turned to her, placing his hand atop hers and their joined ones. “I know. That’s not the way the king is supposed to speak in front of the court.” He regarded the court and Irwin once again. “But you know what? I almost died three days ago. I’m really not at my best right now, and I think we can all agree that even my best leaves something to be desired.”

Anora, who watched only Alistair now, gave a sad sigh. How could he still believe that?

Because it was moments like these, when he showed his true emotions, that he was at his best. It wasn’t traditional, and Anora had certainly never been raised to act as such in public, but those were all superficial noble concerns. The people of Ferelden — not the nobility, but the people who were responsible for the day-to-day functions of the country — preferred their politicians to be honest, and most of all, to be real.

And right now, Alistair was nothing but real. He usually wore his emotions on his sleeve, but now they powered his voice and expression and posture, and Maker.

In her eyes, he had never looked more regal.

“You targeted a single elven woman just because you could,” His Majesty King Alistair Theirin declared from the throne. “And when she complained, she received justice. But you couldn’t tolerate that, and so you targeted someone else — ordering your gardener to poison a bottle of brandy, threatening his family when he refused and poisoning his children’s pet to ensure he hadn’t. All of that would have been more than enough to condemn you. But then you gave it to me, and I opened it for my wife to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. At every step you have targeted those with less power than you in order to get your way. As someone with _more_ power than you by far, I cannot, and I will not, tolerate that.”

He paused, and the entire court held its breath. Anora watched as he, not unlike she always did, drew himself up, straightening his spine and looking more formidable than she’d ever seen him — and she’d seen him on the eve of the battle that ended the Blight. She wondered, idly, if he’d learned that from her.

“You’ve already been stripped of your titles,” the king continued. “But that’s not nearly enough. So, as King of Ferelden, I order that you, Joseph Irwin, disgraced Bann of Dragonmount, be executed by beheading. But not before serving a year in Fort Drakon, to give you time to really think about your crimes.”

The court erupted in loud murmurs.

Fort Drakon? They had certainly _not_ discussed that. Alistair despised the place, for obvious reasons, and absolutely refused to visit if a royal presence was required to supervise or discuss the repairs. Anora went in his stead, but she felt sick for days before and after whenever she did. After all, it was her fault that Alistair and Dom had been sent there in the first place, and she could never forget her shameful, if not entirely conscious, request to rescue only Dom, sparing hardly a thought — and then an unkind one — for Alistair. Not to mention that Father had been responsible for the horrific things that had occurred there. Overseeing its reconstruction and protecting Alistair from its memories were the absolute least she could do to make up for Father’s crimes.

“Alistair,” she whispered, at once a warning and a question.

He glanced at her and then spoke again. “Be thankful, Irwin, that the place has changed completely since the last time I was there. Fewer darkspawn corpses and torture implements, more actual beds and humane conditions. Rest assured you will not be ill-treated.”

Alistair nodded at Captain Harkwold, who led Irwin away.

“Well,” Alistair said, turning to Anora, but speaking in the same tone and volume he used to address the court. “I think that’s plenty of excitement for one day, my dear, don’t you?”

Anora smiled, but not in the usual queenly way she did when she was on the throne. This smile was genuine and soft. It was not a public smile.

But Anora didn’t particularly care right now.

“You need to rest.” She squeezed his hand to keep from cupping his cheek, for she did care that the gesture was not for public consumption.

At least, not yet.

She addressed the court. “That will be all for today. Thank you.”

And hand-in-hand, they left together.

* * *

Alistair spent the remainder of the day resting. He’d asked so sweetly, half-asleep already from the physical taxation, if Anora would stay with him while he did, and she acquiesced, unable to refuse even if she’d wanted to, which she did not.

He woke around dinner, which he took in his chambers, surrounded by Anora and his companions, all of whom took their meals with him.

“Dom, leave me alone!” Alistair whined. “Nor, make him stop.”

“Dom,” Anora said, hardly looking up from her own plate.

The great Hero of Ferelden, who was currently looming over Alistair on the opposite side of the bed from Anora, sighed with his entire body. “You’ve hardly eaten!”

“I’ve cleaned my plate!” Alistair picked it up and held it upside down as proof, spilling crumbs as he did.

Dom crossed his arms, scowling. “You should have cleaned at least three by now.”

Anora glanced up to find the others ignoring the conversation, so she could only assume this sort of childish bickering between them was normal. A small — quite small, infinitesimally small — part of her longed for the times that Dom refused to speak around her.

She didn’t blame Alistair for being annoyed. But she couldn’t blame Dom for being concerned either.

“Wynne!” Alistair called.

Wynne sighed. “Do not force food upon him, Dom. He is mending quite well, and I have no doubt his normal appetite will return soon.”

Dom threw his arms up, defeated, and flopped into his chair, glaring at the floor.

Alistair alternated between brushing crumbs back onto his empty plate and glancing at Dom from the corner of his eye.

“I’m okay, you know” Alistair muttered.

Dom shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Dom.” Alistair waited for several moments until Dom finally looked up. Then he rested a hand on Dom’s shoulder and said, “I really am.”

Dom blinked rapidly and nodded.

“I’m sorry for —”

“Just don’t die stupidly, okay?” Dom swiped at his eyes roughly. “I’d be so pissed at you for dying of _poison_ and leaving —” He let out a shaky breath. “Just don’t, okay?”

Alistair nodded seriously. “I promise from this moment onward not to eat or drink anything ever aga — ow!”

Dom had punched him in the arm, but both idiots were grinning at each other.

Another immense wave of gratitude for the presence of Alistair’s friends washed over Anora. They had been invaluable, not only for their assistance in the investigation but also for their support of Alistair — and her. Given the way she’d met them all at the Landsmeet, she was exceedingly pleasantly surprised that any of them wanted to be in the same room with her, much less treat her like a part of their little family. They had welcomed her with open arms once they’d realized that she, too, cared for Alistair, even if she herself wasn’t quite sure of the nature of her feelings.

“Really, though,” Dom was saying, both his tone and expression darkening. “Fort Drakon?”

Alistair sighed, and Anora noted that his exhaustion went far deeper than the physical.

“That wasn’t the original plan,” he said, glancing quickly at Anora from the corner of his eye. “But execution was just too … easy. That’s the punishment for committing treason and we had to make an example, but as I looked at his smug face, it didn’t seem like nearly enough for the things he’s done and the people he’s hurt.”

“Yes, I understand that,” said Dom. “But Fort Drakon?”

“It’s not like it was.” Alistair spoke simply and earnestly. “Most of it had to be rebuilt anyway after the battle, and I — well, Anora’s been overseeing the reconstruction, and it’s mostly a garrison now. He’s the first person to be sent as a prisoner, but it won’t be like …” His voice wavered. “Like it was.”

Dom looked not at Alistair, but at Anora. “Good,” he said firmly, with a single slow nod of his head that might also have been a bow.

“I think perhaps we should leave Alistair to his rest,” said Wynne.

“But I don’t wanna,” Alistair moaned exaggeratedly, but Anora could see that, though he didn’t say it, he appreciated his friends’ presence.

“Even the king must follow the healer’s orders.” Wynne spoke in her scolding _Do as I say, young man_ tone, and Anora’s heart clenched as she realized that Alistair had likely never had someone to worry over him when he was sick or injured as a child.

“When will you all have to leave?” he asked softly, picking at his blanket.

“I am not required in Val Royeaux for another month,” Leliana said cheerfully.

“And I am not required anywhere in particular,” Zevran added. “An advantage of no longer serving the Crows.”

“I sent a bird to Shale explaining my delay,” Wynne explained.

“A bird?” Alistair asked, exchanging concerned glances with Leliana and Zevran that confused Anora.

“I explained to them that the bird was a quick messenger and well-trained, and that I only sent it to alert them of what had occurred.” Wynne’s explanation did not help Anora understand what was being left unsaid. She pulled out a letter. “They responded, ‘Tell it I hope the danger to its flesh form has not caused it serious harm, though I hope it has perhaps improved its poor attempts at humor as a result. And remind it that, though I prefer birds, I am capable of crushing all flesh creatures, should it have need.’”

“Aw,” Dom said, gently shoving Alistair’s shoulder. “That’s Shale’s way of saying they love you!”

Alistair’s ears turned red, and he smiled sheepishly.

“And I’m not going anywhere any time soon,” Dom said. “When you feel better, maybe we can spar!”

“You know what?” Alistair said. “I bet Anora would love for you to teach her some of your moves! I’ve been working with her, and she really enjoys it so far!”

He met her gaze, and his eyes twinkled with mischief.

“That would be interesting,” Anora said, smile placid and neutral. “I can always use more practice.”

Dom narrowed his eyes, bouncing his gaze back and forth between the two. “Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway,” he said, rubbing Alistair’s hair. “Get some rest, Your Majesty. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“The people wouldn’t be too sad if the Hero of Ferelden mysteriously disappeared, would they?” Alistair called after him.

His companions all laughed as they filed from the room.

* * *

Anora’s heart began to pound. She hadn’t been alone with Alistair aside from when he slept or was speaking to the court, so she wasn’t entirely sure how to interact after everything.

So much had happened since the last time they’d spoken in private — he’d died and worried them all with his slow recovery, she’d begun to admit that her feelings for him were more than just friendship, he’d told the entire court that he was more angry that she had been targeted than that he himself had almost died.

She wanted to talk with him about all of it and none of it. Her stomach roiled with nerves, but her heart continued its frantic drumbeat, its refrain urging her to _Tell him. Tell him. Tell him._

In the end, as was always the case, Alistair broke the silence.

“Were you wanting to …” He waved toward the door.

“I can, if you like,” she said hurriedly.

“No! I —” Alistair shrugged. “You’re just standing there, silent, and that usually means that people are too polite to tell me they want to leave.”

Something about the way he said that, as if he were only too familiar with people politely (and not-so-politely) wishing to get away from him, made her heart twinge.

“If I wanted to leave, I would tell you so,” she said.

“Oh.” Alistair picked at his blanket for a few moments, then looked up at her and patted the bed next to him.

The uncertainty still present in his expression melted into a smile when she crossed the room without hesitation. He scooted over so she could sit next to him, holding up the covers and fluffing a pillow to place behind her back.

Her chest ached at the sweetness he only showed her when they were alone. No one had ever treated her in such a way since she’d reached adulthood. Like she was important. Precious.

Like she mattered more than her title.

Their arms touched from their shoulders to their fingers, which they both automatically twined together.

“I know that we only ever sleep together after nightmares,” he said, watching their joined hands. “But I’d like you to stay with me for a few nights more. Just until I’m feeling a bit more like myself,” he added hurriedly. “I’m still sore enough that I have difficulty getting comfortable, and …” He swallowed. “I sleep better with you.”

The mere thought of going back to her own bed all the way across their quarters made her throat burn. What if something happened when he was alone? She’d been seconds from losing him once. She couldn’t bear to imagine what would happen if she lost him for good. Especially if she could have saved him, had she been closer.

“Of course I’ll stay.” She squeezed his hand and leaned in to rest her head on his shoulder. “As long as you need me.”

His breath caught, and she heard him swallow hard. “Maybe not that long,” he whispered.

Her stomach fluttered at his admission, and her heart began to pound that refrain again — _Tell him. Tell him. Tell him._

To keep from letting anything, whether tears or unwise words, escape, she turned into his side, looping her other arm through his and burying her face in his neck. In return, he rested his head against hers and ran his fingers through her hair.

They stayed like that for a while, and Anora swore that both their hearts beat out the same speedy rhythm. Neither said a thing, lest they ruin this fragile moment.

“Are you happy?” she asked, in lieu of an admittance. The question seemed important now, like she wouldn’t be at peace until she knew the answer.

“I’ve been better,” Alistair said. “Here’s some free advice — don’t drink concentrated deathroot extract. It might sound fun, but the aftereffects … hoo.”

She smirked, but didn’t move. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

He didn’t answer for so long that she thought he’d decided to ignore her, or perhaps that he’d fallen asleep. But his breaths were too uneven and quick for the latter.

“It’s not what I would have chosen for myself,” he said after an eternity. “But … yes. I’m happy enough.”

Anora squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Would you be happier, do you think, if you could go back to being a Warden?”

A pause, then, “You know, if you’d wanted to get rid of me, you could have just waited a couple of minutes to call Wynne.”

“Do not —” Her voice gave out. “Do not joke about that. Please.”

He released their joined hands, and for a moment she worried he would pull away. Her heart clenched, desperately beating, _Tell him! Tell him! Tell him!_

But he only released her to wrap his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. In a motion so soft she almost thought she’d imagined it, he pressed his lips into her hair.

When he spoke, all she could feel on her head was the movement of his chin.

“Would you be happier if I went back to being a Warden?”

“No!” She clutched him desperately, afraid that he might disappear into nothingness like a dream upon waking. “We are partners, and you are my — my best friend. But I would not keep you here if you would be happier elsewhere.”

He hummed. “If we’re such good partners, wouldn’t that be bad for the people of Ferelden?”

“Hang the people of Ferelden,” she snapped. “I care more about your happiness.”

He lifted his head at that, but she couldn’t raise hers. She wasn’t sure she could bear the look on his face.

“Not to push on a sore spot,” he said softly, “but that might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She let out a noise partway between a laugh and a sob.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, because of course he did. “First you’re all touchy in front of my friends, then you and Dom are actually _getting along_, and you delayed making an example of a treasonous bann for some reason I still don’t understand.”

She didn’t respond because the only thought in her mind was _Tell him. Tell him. Tell him._

“Leliana mentioned that you stayed with me from the moment I collapsed until Dom carried me in here. I … I appreciate that,” he said thickly. “More than I can say. But I can only imagine how hard it was. If you want to talk about it —”

“Today at court,” she said, changing to another question that kept her unsettled. “You —”

He sighed. “I know. I was wondering when you would get to this. I shouldn’t have said I was pissed, that was really unkingly of me, and —”

“No,” she whispered. “How can you be more angry that I was targeted than that you nearly died?”

He buried his face in her hair before she’d even finished. “I think you know why. And since I told you I’d try to go back to the way we were, I won’t say it.”

She clutched him closer, but that didn’t keep her tears from escaping. “Why?” she asked.

“Because I love you,” he whispered.

“But _why_?” she asked again, the question that had troubled her since his confession.

“I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me that,” he said. “It seems pretty obvious to me. You’re smart, and clever, and you care about Ferelden more than is probably healthy. You’ve been through so much in the past two years, and in your life — all the people you’ve lost, and all the people who have used you for their own gain. And that might just break some people. Or make them wonder what the point of it all is, or curse the Maker for their lot, or, I don’t know, make jokes all the time because laughing is much better than thinking about how awful things are.”

Anora pressed herself against him, burying her face in his neck, wrapping her arms around tightly around him, curling into him until she was nearly in his lap.

Alistair responded by holding her closer than he ever had before.

“But you’re just so strong and brave. You take everything in stride. And you’re so Maker-damned confident! Not proud in a bad way, but you know that you know what you’re doing. And even more, you know when you don’t, and you ask for help. Do you know how special that is? I could count on one closed fist the number of other people I know who have the confidence and courage to do that.”

He fell silent, and she took all of that in. The way he saw her was so different from the way she saw herself, but he wasn’t wrong, either. Perhaps, in addition to not giving Alistair enough credit from the start, she hadn’t given herself enough credit, either.

After a while, but not nearly long enough for her to fully absorb everything he’d said, he kissed the top of her head — she knew for sure this time — and pulled one arm away.

She whimpered at the loss, and he laughed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I just need to get something.”

For the first time since she’d laid her head against him, she braved a look and opened her eyes.

From his side table drawer he pulled a square but rather flat black box, about as large as his hand.

She untangled herself from him to look at it, then at him.

“Zev said you told him this wasn’t yours yet because I was supposed to watch you open it. How about we do that now before anything else interrupts us, like a sudden hole ripping apart the sky or something?”

“Oh, Alistair.” She buried her face in his shoulder again. “I still haven’t gotten you anything!”

“Oh, I don’t know. You have been busy, but you did save my life.”

“You saved mine first.”

Alistair gave her a flat look. “It’s not a competition. Although,” he added, tapping his chin with a finger. “You’re right. If it was, I would definitely be winning.”

Anora laughed, hitting him lightly in the chest and taking the box.

She opened it and gasped.

Inside was a necklace. The chain was a simple braid of rose gold, and on it hung, also in rose gold, a lovely, intricate rose bloom.

It might have been the most beautiful necklace she’d ever seen, and her heart clenched so hard she thought it might burst.

“Alistair,” she breathed. “It’s …”

“Look closer,” Alistair whispered, nearly as breathless as she was.

She did, and in the center of the rose was an opening — no, it was a small glass enclosure. Holding it up to the light, she could see the tiniest sliver of something red.

“Is that —”

“The rose,” he said. “Or a teeny part of it, anyway.”

She gaped at him. “How did you — Why —”

He reached for the chain. “May I?”

Her mind seeming to have lost all ability to think, she let him take it and turned around, numb.

“You fell asleep with it in your hand that night,” he said, breath tickling her ears as he lifted the necklace over her head to rest on her chest. “And I realized that it meant something to you, even if it wasn’t what it meant to me. So I took it, thinking that I might, I don’t know, frame it or something.”

His hands brushed the back of her neck, and she shivered at the touch.

“When I left, I took it with me, thinking I could figure something out while we traveled. And I did.”

He fastened the clasp and let go, the weight of it comforting in a way she couldn’t explain. She lifted to rose to look at it closely as she turned back to face Alistair.

“I saw this not far outside Orzammar, before I remembered that I was about to leave Ferelden and potentially anger some isolationist dwarfs. And it was so perfect. I asked the smith if she could —”

“She?” Anora asked, still caressing the rose.

Alistair chuckled. “Yes, I thought you might like that. I asked if she could add that little compartment and put in bit of the rose — Dom called it a ‘flower crumb,’ but Leliana liked the idea, so I figured it wasn’t too bad — and she had it ready for me the next day.”

Anora had no words. No one had ever given her something so personal before.

“This isn’t about — it’s not a token, or anything,” Alistair said quickly. “What I wanted to say that night kind of got out of hand with all the … other things. But I meant every word about how the rose reminded me of you and your strength and courage. And I thought maybe you could use a constant reminder of it. Just in case you ever forget how amazing you are.”

Anora looked up at Alistair through tears. “I love it,” she whispered. “It’s —”

Perfect didn’t even begin to describe what it was. How she felt. Every word and phrase, even the obvious one, sounded inadequate for what she wanted to express to him.

Hang the words, then.

She cupped his face in both hands and kissed him.

He froze, apparently too surprised to do anything else. But an instant later, he recovered, thrusting a hand into her hair and wrapping his other arm around her in a possessiveness she could never have predicted. He pulled her close until she was actually in his lap, cradling her in his arms as though she were the most precious thing in the world.

Sooner than she wanted, they broke apart, short of breath, hearts pounding in sync.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Alistair said, his lips brushing her as they moved to form the words. “But what, specifically, was that for?”

“It was a yes,” Anora breathed.

She opened her eyes — when had they closed? — and saw, as she had the night he’d given her the rose, Alistair’s heart laid bare.

“To what?” he asked, and she could hear his anxiety, feel it in the way he tightened his hold on her, as if afraid to let go, lest he lose her.

She looked directly into his beautifully expressive eyes and told him the truth. “You asked if I thought I could ever feel the same way about you. My answer is y —”

Her answer, that wonderful word, was swallowed when he kissed her, holding her as close to him as it was physically possible.

Anora had never kissed Alistair before. Not really. They’d only ever shared chaste public kisses, like at their wedding, and never during sex. She’d kissed and been kissed before, and she had no desire to kiss a man she barely tolerated. As her feelings changed, the rule stayed in place.

She didn’t realize it was possible for a kiss to hold so many emotions at once. It was just lips pressing against lips, but it told her everything Alistair was feeling in that moment.

Love.

The word seemed so simple to describe what he was telling her, and what she, in turn, was saying to him. But they clutched each other close, and Anora’s chest filled with a pressure that was too pleasant to be painful, but which threatened to burst out of her — her heart, perhaps, beating so hard it could probably take flight.

All she wanted in that moment, all she imagined ever wanting in the future, all she couldn’t believe she’d lived without until now, was Alistair, holding and kissing her like this.

Their kisses became more desperate, sloppier, ragged. They were as close as two still-clothed people could be, but it wasn’t nearly close enough. Alistair maneuvered them until they were lying down, grasping at everything they could.

Eventually, their vigor ebbed. Whether it happened naturally or because Alistair had reached the peak of his physical exhaustion, Anora didn’t know, their kisses slowed. But they didn’t cease, and neither did the passion behind them.

When finally they broke apart, Anora opened her eyes to Alistair’s lovely, pure, ecstatic grin.

“Checkmate,” he said.

Anora pulled back. “What?”

“Isn’t that what you say when you win at chess? I heard you and Dom playing while I was resting.”

“Yes,” Anora said, dragging out the vowel in an unspoken question.

“I don’t know, it just felt like the right thing to say.”

“Because you … won?”

“I won you,” he said, his grin bigger than Anora had ever seen it.

Anora scoffed. “I am not a prize to be _won_, nor is our relationship a competition …”

Her words faded as he continued to grin at her.

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you even know how to play chess?”

“Absolutely not at all,” he said, shaking his head. “I think there’s some pieces and a board?”

She smacked him lightly and burst into laughter, and so did he. They laughed until their sides hurt and they could barely breathe, but Anora didn’t care.

Before her laugh had faded completely, Alistair kissed her. Just once, just gently, startling the laugh right out of her.

“What was that for?” she asked.

“It was a yes.”

“To what?” As far as she could recall, she hadn’t asked a question that was answerable in kiss form.

“You asked if I was happy,” he whispered, running his fingers through her hair. “I can’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be than right here with you.”

Her eyes stung with tears and she kissed him back.

“I love you,” she said. Finally.

He returned her kiss. “I love you, too.”

And they continued that way, kissing and confessing and kissing and confessing, too happy to do anything else, no matter how tired they both were.

If Anora had it her way, they’d never do anything else. She supposed they’d have to rule Ferelden at some point.

But Ferelden could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter summary (sometimes verbatim, but paraphrased whenever possible) references:  
[Chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess), Wikipedia  
[Queen's Gambit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit), Wikipedia


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